San Jose, Calif. — Apple won its dispute over the iPods.com domain name on Wednesday. The World Intellectual Property Organization ruled in favor of the billion dollar company, which in May filed a complaint asserting defendant Private Whois Service of Nassau, Bahamas, did not have a legitimate right to use the name.
Any user who clicked on iPods.com was redirected to mp3gold.com, a holding page of nothing but links.
As Fusible noted when it reported the story, Apple did not explain why it chose to wait nearly nine years after the iPod maker launched its media player before trying to secure the domain. Most recently the company acted by getting out its checkbook, acquiring the iCloud domain for $4.5 million and in 2007 buying iPhone.com from businessman Michael Kovatch for nearly $1 million.
Although shelling out millions has gained the company a number of domain wins, Apple may find it more financially reasonable to take advantage of Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) which only requires thousands when it’s successful for a complainant.
Despite Apple’s payout for domain names, the company still does not have ownership of Macs.com, iPhones.com, iPhone5.com and others. Fusible.com reported Apple acquired the domains WhiteiPhone.com and iPhone4.com for an undisclosed amount.
Additionally, WIPO declined Apple’s request request to include in the proceedings four additional domain names also registered by the respondent, specifically appleipods.com, ipodhack.com, iphhone.com and iphine.com.
Related Links:
WIPO ruling – http://tinyurl.com/3oc6akq
Fusible post – http://tinyurl.com/4yhav7v
Photo by flickr user ivanpw, used under Creative Commons license
