EasyGroup threatens .easy applicant, LFG files lawsuit: TLD fight
LFG seeks legal relief and asks ICANN to clarify whether the easyGroup conglomerate broke fresh TLD rules.
EasyGroup has threatened applicants for the .easy top level domain, and now one is fighting back in court.
The firm, known for its easyJet brand, among others, disclosed a bid for .easy last month.
EasyGroup sent a legal threat to Link Freedom Group (LFG), which has also disclosed an application for the .easy domain. Aruba also applied for the domain.
The firm stated it would consider any registrations under .easy to be trademark infringement and demanded that LFG withdraw its application by September 9.
Link Freedom Group (LFG) sued (pdf) easyGroup in federal court yesterday. It’s asking for a declaratory judgment that any dispute over .easy ought to be handled through ICANN’s arbitration process, or a declaratory judgment that its planned .easy top level domain won’t infringe on EasyGroup’s trademarks. Alternatively, it is seeking a finding of tortious interference.
Also, LFG sent a letter (pdf) to ICANN on September 10 asking it to disqualify EasyGroup’s application for .easy. It states, in part:
Our concern that easyGroup has engaged in a prohibited communication designed to induce withdrawal of a competing application is reinforced by the fact that the ICANN Applicant Guidebook provides an explicit mechanism for evaluating precisely the sort of intellectual property claim which easyGroup is asserting in its correspondence to LFG. Specifically, Module 4 of the AGB provides the Legal Rights Objection (LRO) process for evaluation of whether a TLD string is unfairly premised on a claimed trademark. Given the existence of an orderly process for objective evaluation of these claims, LFG believes there is no justifiable reason for a competing TLD applicant to attempt to route around the process ICANN has prescribed to address such situations.
LFG asked ICANN to clarify whether EasyGroup’s letter violates the guidebook’s rules against communication between applicants in a contention set.
ICANN’s response might clarify whether applicants can reach deals ahead of Reveal Day. Right now, there’s a lot of confusion on the issue.
Or, ICANN could punt the issue down the road, as it has ahead of, rather than saying yes or no and putting the issue to rest.
Interestingly, ICANN has not published LFG’s letter on its correspondence page. It did publish a letter from the State of Texas objecting to any .texas applications.
