Rebranding is supposed to provoke a response, right? Consumer interest? Marketing awards? A trade-mark lawsuit?

Brick Brewing Co., an independent Ontario brewery, recently rebranded their Red Baron beer, updating the look with a new label, to the right.  The old label, at left, was used since the late 1980s and was registered as a trade-mark in 1991.

The new label attracted the attention of rival Labatt Brewing Company and last week Labatt sued for trade-mark infringement and sought an injunction, alleging that the new Reb Baron label was confusing with Labatt’s Brava label (left).  The Brava label was also registered as a trade-mark in April, 2009.

Though the word marks RED BARON v. BRAVA, for beer, are not at all similar, the look, colour, and layout of the labels is arguably more similar, since the word Baron is given more prominence in Brick’s new label.  This highlights the risks of rebranding.  The lessons for business?  Sometimes an updated label will be launched without the same level of scrutiny that is given to a new brand. Even with a “soft” launch such as this, trade-mark searches, trade-mark advice and industry awareness can help mitigate the risk of trade-mark disputes before a new brand or label is launched.

And sometimes, you get hit with a lawsuit just because your competitor is your competitor.

Calgary – 10:30 MST

In the (now notorious) Colorado case of InfoMedia, Inc. v. Air-O-Matic Inc. (Court Case Number: 1:09-cv-00302-ZLW), two makers of rival iPhone applications are in a trade-mark battle over the use of the phrase “Pull My Finger” in association with an application for the mobile device. InfoMedia uses the phrase “pull my finger” in its marketing and is seeking a declaration that the phrase is generic when applied to the product, and cannot function to distinguish Air-O-Matic.  Air-O-Matic counters that InfoMedia is riding its coat-tails by using the phrase.  Air-O-Matic has applied for registration of the phrase as a trade-mark, in association with “Computer application software for mobile phones”, though the application is encountering trouble because of the specimen that was filed. (They should have taken a screen-shot from iTunes.) In any event they’re both enjoying some additional press, which may have been the whole point to the dispute in the first place.

Battles between competing iPhone apps will become a feature of the legal landscape, and these cases trace their lineage to the old video-game disputes of the early 1980s:

• Atari Inc. v. Williams, a 1981 case out of California, pitted Atari’s famous Pac-Man against a rival game, Jawbreaker.  The court found that the strategy of the Pac-Man game was not protectable.
• Atari Inc v. Tyrom Inc., a 1982 case, decided that rival “Gobbleman” was infringing in its use of characters and design features; Pac-Man won that round.
• Williams Electronics Inc. vs. Artic International Inc. , a 1982 case over the popular game “Defender”, established important principles in video game copyright infringement cases, and specifically determined that a player’s interaction with a game – such that the player is “creating” or “authoring” new scenes as the game is played – does not detract from the copyright protection afforded the game.

We’ve come a long way from Pac-Man… though 25 years later, that game retains a certain diginity when measured against the “Pull My Finger” fart-simulator.

Calgary – 14:45 MST 

Two Canadian domain name decisions:

• In the saga of the domain name forsale.ca, another chapter has been written.  This domain name was the subject of an earlier battle between Globe Media and the then-owner, Dawn Internet (Globe Media International Corporation v. Dawn Internet Telephony Systems Inc, CIRA Decision 00059 (2006).  Globe Media failed in that dispute because any rights it claimed arose after the original registration of the domain name in 2000.  The domain name registration then lapsed, and was snapped up by a new registrant in January, 2009.  Globe Media offered to buy the domain name for $5,000, but by then the domain name had been flipped and sold to Bonfire Development, Inc. for $30,000.  Globe Media launched this complaint in February.  The panel found that the domain name “is so clearly generic that its registration cannot be seen as being registered in bad faith.” The complaint was dismissed. Further, the panel awarded costs of $5,000 against Globe Media for “reverse domain name hijacking“, the first award of its kind. Case Decision

 

• At first glance, this is a case determining that Americans cannot hold dot-ca domain names.  In a dispute over the domain name clearlylasik.ca, the complaint was summarily dismissed because the US complainant, who claimed rights to the mark ‘Clearly Lasik’ in Canada and carries on business in Canada under that name, failed to satisfy the Canadian presence requirements.  In fact, it appears the complainant does hold a registered trade-mark for CLEARLY LASIK, but failed to submit evidence of this.  The complaint would have likely succeeded since there was no response.  The disputed domain names now resolve to the Complainant’s site, suggesting that the matter was likely settled after this decision was rendered. Case Decision 

 

Calgary – 10:30 MST

A US appeals court has permitted an attack against Google’s (in)famous AdWords program by allowing a trade-mark infringement lawsuit to proceed.  The lawsuit was brought against Google by Rescuecom Corp., a computer service and support company.  Rescuecom alleged that Google’s AdWords program (its practice of selling the Rescuecom trade-mark to other advertisers, thereby triggering the appearance of a competitor’s advertisements and links when a Google user launched a search of Rescuecom’s trade-marks) was a violation of trade-mark rights.

On April 3, the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Rescuecom’s lawsuit could proceed.  The outcome of this suit will be closely watched.

Related Reading: Trademark Infringement and Google AdWords  

Calgary – 14:00 MST

VANOC, the organizer of the 2010 Olympics, has launched another lawsuit in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Games, this time to block ticket scalping. The suit filed in March against Coast2Coast Tickets alleges trade-mark violations in the effort to curb unauthorized ticket resales. The claim alleges the ticket reseller is using protected Olympic marks to give the public the impression that there is some affiliation with VANOC.  Over the past few years VANOC has also pursued trade-mark remedies against:

• a domainer who registered the domain names vancouver2010.org, vancouver2010.net, vancouverwhistler2010.net and vancouverwhisterler.com ;
• the owners of a business calling itself “Whistler Olympic Real Estate” and operating a website using the Internet domain name  ; and
• a distributor, Teepee Handicrafts Ltd., who sold and distributed merchandise bearing marks such as VANCOUVER 2010 and 2010 VANCOUVER WHISTLER without the permission of VANOC  .

Olympic litigation is likely to increase over the next year, as ambush marketing and unauthorized sales heat up in advance of the games.

Related Reading: VANOC Ticket Broker Suit Raises Concerns about Reach of Official Marks

Calgary – 10:30 MST

American computer giant Dell Inc. has launched a challenge against Canadian computer maker Psion Teklogix Inc. and its ownership of the trade-mark NETBOOK.  Psion registered the mark NETBOOK in both Canada and the US in 2000 (based on its original application filed in 1996), and now Dell is challenging that registration.  Lawyers for Dell argue that Psion has abandoned the mark by failing to use it in connection with laptops, or alternatively, they argue that the mark is generic and therefore not eligible to function as a trade-mark, since “the primary significance of the term to the relevant public is as the name for small and inexpensive laptop computers.”  Psion has an uphill battle since competitors are using the mark in a generic way, and are even filing trade-mark applications, including for COBY NETBOOK, WIND NETBOOK and G NETBOOK for personal computers, all of which erode the distinctiveness of NETBOOK as a mark that identifies Psion. To protect this mark the owner will have to fight off Dell’s challenge, oppose the multiple trade-mark applications by competitors, then go out and sue infringers across the industry. 

A good example of a once-unique mark that has fallen into a “dead zone” which makes it expensive to salvage.  The lesson for brand owners is two-fold: use-it-or-lose-it, and fiercely defend at the first sign of infringement.

Related reading: Generic Domain Names in Canada  and Update: Generic Trade-marks  

Calgary – 10:30 MST

 

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office has announced that the Trade-marks Opposition Board will be changing its practice, effective March 31, 2009, pursuant to the new Practice in Trade-mark Opposition Proceedings. Here’s a summary of the changes:

• The new practice will simplify the procedure and time-lines for granting extensions of time, and will clarify when extensions of time can be granted in exceptional circumstances.
• Parties will be encouraged to mediate and settle disputes early in the process, including through the use of a “cooling-off” period.
• A new practice is introduced for scheduling hearings.

Calgary – 14:30 MST

In a recent story that made national newspapers here, it was suggested that McGill University’s new advertising campaign had somehow stepped on the toes of American Larry Smith, editor of an online magazine.  Mr. Smith raised an allegation that somehow the idea of a six-word summary was protectable under intellectual property laws – trade-marks, or copyright, or something.  Such an idea is certainly not protectable, so McGill has nothing to worry about and Mr. Smith is off-base. 

Calgary – 15:00 MST

Some people take their whisky seriously. The Scottish Whisky Association takes the topic very seriously. They were concerned that the use of the word “Glen”, in connection with a Canadian whisky, would mislead consumers into thinking the drink was from Scotland. So concerned, they sued Glenora Distillers, the Canadian distiller of GLEN BRETON whisky all the way up to the Federal Court of Appeal. 

For lawyers, it’s a trade-mark issue: Has the word “Glen” in association with “single malt whisky” become recognized in Canada as designating Scotland as the origin of whiskies? In a decision last year (Scotch Whisky Association v. Glenora Distillers International Ltd. 2008 FC 425 Date: April 3, 2008) the court agreed with the Scotch Whisky Association, and decided that the word “Glen” would confuse consumers.  The court refused to permit Glenora to register the trade-mark GLEN BRETON for single-malt whisky. 

Last week, the Federal Court of Appeal reversed that decision and agreed with the distiller. It’s worth noting that the product is not marketed as “scotch”, but as “Canada’s only single-malt whisky”. The appeal judges decided that the word “Glen” would not mislead consumers, and permited the trade-mark application to proceed. The Scotch Whisky Association is rumoured to be considering an appeal – this time, all the way up to the Supreme Court of Canada.  If they do appeal, the next decision won’t be expected until sometime in 2011, about 8 years from when the contest began. Just enough time to permit the bottling of the next batch of GLEN BRETON 8-year-old single malt.

Calgary – 10:45 MST 

 

Many Canadian companies are hoping that sales to China’s growing consumer class will help cushion the blow of the US economic downturn. Any penetration into the Chinese market will inevitably involve brand battles for consumer products. Take this recent example, where a Chinese distiller was fined for infringing the famous Johnnie Walker Black Label brand. The competing products are pictured – one the original brand and one a Chinese product sold under the brand “Polonius - 12 Years”.  Last month a Chinese court fined the Chinese company 1.25 million yuan (about $225,000 CAD) for infringement of the trade-mark and distinctive shape of the bottle. 

Calgary – 15:30 MST

It was announced last night that Barack Obama will become the next US President. Entrepreneurial Americans across the nation are taking the opportunity to file trade-mark applications inspired by the President-elect. Here are a few of the more interesting ones filed in the USPTO in the last year:

• BROCCOLI OBAMA – filed for “A vegetable recipe”
• OBAMALLAMA – for plush and stuffed toys and political memorabilia
• WHO’S YO’BAMA NOW? – for athletic apparel, namely, shirts, pants, jackets, footwear, hats and caps, athletic uniforms; Button-front aloha shirts
• THE REAL OBAMA GIRL  – for audio and video recordings; digital music downloadable from the Internet
• OBAMA BABY – for customized imprinting of company names and logos on promotional merchandise, apparel and corporate gifts
• OBAMANOS! – for imprinting messages on wearing apparel, accessories and mugs
• IRISH FOR O’BAMA – Bumper stickers
• OBAMANATION – for yoga/exercise pants, loungewear and scarves
• O.B.A.M.A. OUR BEST ANSWER FOR MANAGING AMERICA – for T-Shirts, Sweaters, and Hats.

And my personal favourite:

• BEARAK OBAMA – for teddy bears

Now if only Canadian politicians inspired such branding activity.

Calgary – 11:20 MST 

When are domain names so descriptive or generic that they can’t function as a trade-mark? 

A Montreal lawyer registered and used the domain name canadavisa.com for immigration law services.  He then challenged the owner of canadavisa.ca claiming that the use of the dot-ca domain name for similar services would constitute bad faith contrary to the dispute resolution policy.  In a recent arbitration decision Cohen v. 3824152 Canada Inc. the panel decided that CANADA VISA cannot function as a trade-mark for services related to obtaining visas for Canada, since under trade-mark law both CANADA and VISA would have to be disclaimed as being purely descriptive of the services.  Since the domain name could not function as a “mark” under the rules, the complaint failed. 

Compare this with the recent complaint by a Toronto realtor who used yourcommunityrealty.com.  The realtor complained about the registration of yourcommunityrealty.ca, which was directed to a page featuring ads for competing realtors.  Is YOUR COMMUNITY REALTY generic for real estate services?   In the decision Risi v. Fattahi, the panel relied on the complainant’s Canadian trade-mark registrations for YOUR COMMUNITY REALTY.  Because she had chosen a slightly more distinctive mark, and had taken the step of registering trade-mark rights several years before, the complainant avoided the problem of proving distinctiveness or acquisition of secondary meaning (the problem which foiled the complaint in the Canada Visa case).  The complaint was successful.

In the recent Trade-mark Opposition Board decision in London Drugs v. Total Care Pharmacy (April 28, 2008), the board refused to permit the registration of the proposed mark CROSSBORDERPHARMACY.COM for an online pharmacy because the mark was clearly descriptive.   

There are several lessons for business:

1. A domain name does not need to be distinctive to be successful as a website address (canadavisa.com reportedly enjoyed popularity as a site), but without a distinctive element, the domain name cannot function as a trade-mark and this will always limit enforcement options in the case of infringement or domain name disputes;
2. Trade-mark registration can be a very useful tool – in the Community Realty case, the complainant could likely have pursued a trade-mark infringement case, but the domain name arbitration was cheaper and quicker, and the trade-mark registration proved critical for success in that venue;
3. Defensive domain name registrations are also good practice: if the owner of canadavisa.com had registered the dot-ca and other variations as a defensive measure, then the lack of distinctiveness would be irrelevant.

Related post: Update: Generic Trade-marks 

Calgary – 11:00 MST

It is very common for Canadian companies to expand their customer base into the US, and it is also common for Canadians to encounter difficulties when they discover that they have the same brand name as a US competitor. Trade-mark law permits the same trade-mark to owned by different companies in different countries. But internet marketing blurs those lines, leading to trade-mark disputes and turf wars.

An American court has saddled a Canadian company with “corrective advertising compensatory damages” or what might be termed “Google damages”. The decision in Punch Clock Inc. v. Smart Software Development, No. 07-61684 (S.D. Fla., April 7, 2008) started as a complaint by the owner of PUNCH CLOCK, a US trademark registered for payroll and time-keeping software. The Canadian defendant marketed a competing product in Canada, also under the mark PUNCH CLOCK. When the US company launched a lawsuit in Florida, the Canadians changed their mark to LION CLOCK, but they never responded to the lawsuit, and the US company won a default judgment.

The US company complained that Google searches for the terms “punch clock” produced results that listed the Canadian website above the US company’s site. Alexa searches also showed that the traffic rank for the Canadian website was much higher than for the US company’s site. As a result, the court awarded seven years worth of “corrective advertising” – specifically, the Canadians were ordered to pay the cost for the US company to purchase top placement of its website on Google search listings for five keywords for seven years. At $136 per day for seven years, the corrective advertising damages totaled $347,480, which the court tripled to $1,042,440, on the grounds that the infringement was willful.

Corrective advertising is not a new concept, but it has traditionally been employed in consumer-protection situations where it is ordered to counter false advertising. In this case, it is hard to see why one company should have a “right” to be at the top of Google search results.  There are many reasons why a site enjoys higher or lower rankings on Google search results that have nothing to do with infringement, and the court’s effort to push an aggrieved party to the top of Google’s ranking seems a bit misplaced.  Nevertheless, Canadian companies need to be aware of this risk when facing trade-mark disputes south of the border.

Calgary – 11:30 MST

With glowing hearts, we protect our brand.

VANOC, the organizer of the 2010 Olympics, has unveiled the new Olympic motto “WITH GLOWING HEARTS“.  Of course, some will criticise the choice because it lifts a line from the Canadian national anthem. I can understand why VANOC wants to use the motto with disposable cameras, stuffed mascots and athletic events… but “navigation of down hole probe assembly for oil drilling and drilling assemblies for routing underground utilities”?  Maybe they have an official supplier of downhole probe assemblies for drilling oil.

In any event, VANOC isn’t the only one registering parts of the anthem as a trade-mark.  Canadian patriots will be happy to know that our anthem is well-protected by other trade-mark owners:

OH CANADA (registered for use in association with whiskey)

HOME AND NATIVE LAND (registered for key chains, mugs, coasters and place mats)

TRUE NORTH (registered for footwear namely shoes, boots, slippers and sandals)

STRONG AND FREE (registered for T-shirts, sweaters, and hats)

WE STAND ON GUARD (registered for water purification systems)

Don’t worry, there are several brandable phrases still available. The Americans have the same problem. Someone registered the opening line: OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE? (Reg. No. 2089762) registered in 1997 for clothing.

Calgary – 12:00 MST

When the Liberal Party decided to brand their environmental policy earlier this year, they picked the name “Green Shift” …and walked right into a trade-mark lawsuit.  The mark GREEN SHIFT was already in use by a Toronto environmental consulting company.  The company promptly fired off a cease-and-desist letter, followed up by a trade-mark infringement suit in early July.  It would have been interesting, from a trade-mark law perspective, to see how a court would resolve the interplay of political brands and trade-marks. Alas, we’ll have to wait for the next case.  Election campaigns have a way of motivating settlement and yesterday the Liberal Party announced that they had resolved the dispute, and posted a notice on their site stating that: “The Liberal Party of Canada and Green Shift Inc. have resolved their dispute over the ‘Green Shift’ trademark. The Liberal Party of Canada will continue to use ‘Green Shift’ under license from Green Shift Inc.  Green Shift Inc. is not affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada and the grant of the license does not constitute an endorsement by Green Shift Inc. of the Liberal Party of Canada.”

The business issues:

• For any new brand, trade-mark clearance searches are essential.  The Liberal Party may not have done a trade-mark search when picking a brand for their policy; it might not be standard procedure, considering that a polictical policy is not what we think of as a “product” or a “service” (not unless we’re thinking cynically).
• This shows the increasing complexity of brands and the cost of clean-up in the wake of the launch of a new brand that hasn’t been properly screened.

Calgary – 10:30 MST

In China, the birthplace of countless knock-offs and counterfeits, the task of policing Olympic marks must be daunting indeed.  The trade-marks police must strive to be faster, higher, stronger than the offenders.  French retailer Carrefour was recently rebuked for the use of Olympic emblems in its Nanjing retail location.  Hanging Olympic banners and propping up Olympic mascots in-store is forbidden without paying the appropriate sponsorship fees under Olympic license agreements.  Another story from China illustrates that this isn’t just a matter of preventing unauthorized use of the Olympic rings, but also one of banning the display of any unauthorized logo of any company. Nike’s swooshes were covered up (this was regular advertising appearing in a Beijing pedestrian underpass) since Nike is not an official sponsor. 

This isn’t always a hi-tech affair – inside the stadium, the brand cops will use duct tape to mask any renegade brand that might be picked up by the cameras. If a reporter brings an Apple laptop, they’ll cover up the logo while its in the stadium to avoid the perception that Apple is getting free Olympic advertising.    

As the 2008 Olympics draw to a close, it’s clear that the Chinese experience is a preview of what we can expect to see in Vancouver and Whistler in 2010 when the enforcement of the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act will be in full swing.  We’ll review Olympic advertising guidelines in 2010.

Related Reading: http://www.ipblog.ca/?p=115

 

Calgary – 09:30 MST

A few notes from the internet and domain name world:

• CIRA’s revised WHOIS policy has been criticized by Michael Geist  and others for its “backdoor access for special interests”.  I have to disagree with Prof. Geist on this one.  The ability of trade-mark owners to be able to defend against cybersquatters and trade-mark infringement is a business reality, no different from the ability of someone to see a business license at a store, or to conduct corporate records searches to see who owns a company.  The criticism of the new WHOIS policy is misplaced. The policy strikes a balanced approach between the interests of registrants and brand owners (who are made up of both small local businesses and multinational corporations);
• I don’t often put in a plug for summer sales, but reliable Canadian Registrar webnames.ca is offering new domain name registrations for 50% off , until August 31, 2008.  The promotion applies to all domain extensions: .CA, .COM, .ORG, .MOBI, .NET, .INFO, .BIZ, .US, .CN and .ASIA.  This provides an opportunity for trade-mark owners to buy up variations of their core marks, to fence in their online brand and pre-empt cybersquatting disputes;
• Lastly, the new dot-tel top-level domain is due to be launched at the end of this year, with the Sunrise Period commencing December 3, 2008.  Full particulars of the new domain and the launch schedule can be found here.

 

Calgary – 12:30 MST

 

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office recently announced that the value of counterfeit and pirated products seized at the border had increased in 2008, up to $113.2 million. Of course, that’s just the stuff they seized, and countless other counterfeits and knock-offs are flowing in.

In Canada, the recent case of Louis Vuitton Malletier SA v. 486353 B.C. Ltd. 2008 BCSC 799, illustrates how one brand owner tackled the problem. Louis Vuitton’s investigations showed that counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags were being sold at various retails locations throughout suburban Vancouver, all operated by one proprietor. The lawyers pounced, seized the counterfeit evidence, but avoided litigation by entering into a settlement agreement with the proprietors in 2006. This included a slap-on-the-wrist payment of $6,000 to Louis Vuitton. After monitoring the stores throughout 2007, it became apparent that the settlement agreement had been breached, and Louis Vuitton brought a second lawsuit, this time pushing it through trial to arrive at a significant damage award of close to $1 million, when all the trade-mark and copyright damages were added up. The court also made it clear that the directors would not avoid personal liability:

“A corporation cannot be used to shield an officer or director or a principal employee, when that individual’s actions amount to a deliberate, willful and knowing pursuit of a course of conduct which was likely to constitute infringement or at least where those actions reflect an indifference to the risk of an infringement.”

The battle against counterfeits has spilled over into eBay where various luxury-goods brand owners such as Tiffany have complained that eBay had become a clearing house for counterfeits. A US judge recently decided that eBay was not liable for the providing the means of selling counterfeit goods, and the key to eBay’s win was its set of policies and procedures to respond to complaints of trade-mark infringement.

The take-home message is that brand owners must police their own brands both online and offline. Online venues such as eBay cannot be pressed into service as trademark watchdogs – though they must be prepared to react if notified of an infringement. Just as brand owners must be prepared to investigate and act decisively in maintaining their brand’s integrity.
Calgary – 22:00 MST

There is a news story circulating that internet regulators are permitting domain names with an infinite variety of extensions – so users would not be limited to dot-com, dot-ca or the other 21 extensions which are currently approved.  The piece I heard made it sound as if internet users could wake up tomorrow and start typing in their own random top-level domain suffixes. 

To clarify: It’s true that ICANN (the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers) has approved a proposal to widen the number of extensions, and to permit extensions to be expressed in languages other than the roman alphabet.  However, this will be a long time in coming.  Organizations interested in introducing a new extension must apply to have it approved and implemented.  And ICANN is not expected to even accept applications until mid-2009, then those new extensions that are approved are not likely to be rolled-out until 2010 at the earliest. 

As usual, trade-mark owners and brand managers need to keep abreast of these developments and make strategic decisions about where to focus their branding efforts.  But this particular development is a few years away.

 

Calgary – 14:00 MST

A disgruntled ex-employee registers the dot-com version of the employer’s dot-ca domain name.  Then, just before leaving on vacation out of the country, the ex-employee directs the dot-com domain name to a gay porn site.  The employer sues for damages.

In a recent judgement (Inform Cycle Ltd. v. Draper, 2008 ABQB 369), the Court has awarded damages against the ex-employee for passing-off and defamation, to the tune of $15,000.00.  The case is interesting for a few reasons: first, it is one of the few decisions dealing with both online corporate defamation (defamation of business reputation on the internet) and domain name issues.  And it is interesting for the summary way in which the Court concluded that damages were appropriate.

In the B.C. case of Crookes v. Yahoo, the Court disposed of an online defamation claim by reasoning that there was no evidence that the alleged defamatory material was accessed by someone in B.C.  “Publication is an essential element for an action in defamation,” said the judge. “In this case … [t]here is no evidence anyone read the material in British Columbia.”

Contrast that with the analysis in the Inform Cycle case: “There is no record of the number of people who were forwarded to the gay pornographic website…the people referred to the ‘.com’ site over that 16 day period were people who had made an error by choosing ‘.com’ instead of ‘.ca’. We do not know how many people made that error. We do not know how many actually thought that the referral to the porn site was deliberate rather than a computer or internet glitch. We do not know if anyone, or how many, actually believed that Inform was involved in the porn site or business.” (emphasis added) Despite those apparent gaps in the evidence, the Court had no problem concluding that defamation had occurred, and that damages were appropriate.  The difference might be explained (at least partly) by the fact that the alleged defamatory comments in the Crookes case were made in a members-only discussion forum. It’s likely that the nature of the site where the domain name was directed also has something to do with it.  It is clear that further clarity on these issues is required.

Calgary – 15:30 MST