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First Case of Chinese Domain Name Heard in Beijing
April 25 saw the First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing on hearing the case of ownership of a well-known Chinese domain name. This is as learned the first case of lawsuit on Chinese domain name in China.
Beijing Zhengpu Technology Development Co., Ltd., accuser of the case, applied to the State Administration of Trademark for registration of a combined trademark of Chinese character "°¢Àï°Í°Í" with its Chinese phonetic alphabet "a li ba ba", and invested 2 million yuan in publicizing and popularizing the trademark thereafter. However, when the company tried to register for the Chinese domain name°¢Àï°Í°Í last January, it found that the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) under the Computer Network Information Center of the China Academy of Science had put it aside for other company in advance. Later, the Alibaba Network Technology Development Co., Ltd. obtained this Chinese domain name through registration. In this case, Zhengpu requests the court to adjudge its ownership of the Chinese domain name, and thinks that Alibaba's act of registration for this domain name has constituted a tort.
Nevertheless, CNNIC and Alibaba claim that the registration of Zhengpu hasn't yet been approved by the department concerned, and so it doesn't have any exclusive right of the trademark, which means that the tort isn't established.
The case is pending for further hearing.
By PD Online staff member Deng Gang
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