May 18, 2001
Arbitration forum: Aimster name violates trademark
Richard A. D'Errico Business Review Reporter
The AIM in Aimster violates America Online's trademark and the company must relinquish several Internet domain names with that name in it to AOL, the National Arbitration Forum has decided.
The panel found that domain names such as aimster.com, a1mster.com, aimsertv.com and aimstertv.net violated the Internet provider's trademarked "AIM" in a decision called "American Online, Inc. v. John Deep.
According to the NAF, which is the largest U.S.-based provider of domain name dispute resolution services and is one of the world's largest neutral administration and mediation services, the dispute was one of hundreds heard each year. But this one, it said in a news release, "may have far-reaching consequences."
In the AOL/Aimster case, "Aimster could not include the AIM trademark in its domain names without infringing on the goodwill created in the name by America Online, the Minnesota-based NAF concluded.
Attempts to reach the NAF, Aimster founder Johnny Deep or his attorney, George Carpinello, were unsuccessful.
Aimster has been in the news a lot recently. The maker of Aimster music-sharing software, Deep, first sued the Recording Industry Association of America, Inc., asking the court to tell the RIAA to "leave us alone," according to Carpinello.
BuddyUSA, Inc. of Albany and AbovePeer Inc. of Cohoes, companies founded by Deep, have sued the Washington-based RIAA saying the company did nothing wrong by offering software that allows people to transfer music files.
Then, Deep sued 17 record labels. Carpinello said it was because the labels owned the copyrights, not the RIAA.
Deep is demanding a trial by jury.
In the NAF decision, Peter Michaelson wrote: "These domain names were intentionally selected ... by the respondent due to their high degree of similarity to the complainant's marks and hence for their potential to mislead the complainant's users."
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