Typo Squatting Affiliates Settle with Trademark Owner
By Jeffrey A. Cohen
December 11, 2006

If you are among the shrinking group of Affiliates that still believe that registering a typo domain, pointing it to the real site and then collecting the affiliate fee on any sales is a good business strategy you should be aware that at least one Federal court disagrees.

Land's End took a stand against this practice when it filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against Thinkspin Inc., Braderax Inc. and two individuals, alleging cybersquatting, fraud and breach of contract. The suit claims that the defendants violated the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act which prohibits the “bad faith” registration of a valid trademark or one that is “confusingly similar” when they registered numerous variations of typographical errors of Lands End and used their legitimate affiliate registrations for other sites on the Typos sites and referred the users back to lands end via their affiliate links.

The defendants moved the Federal court to dismiss the claims in the form of a motion for summary judgment however U.S. District Court Judge Barbara B. Crabb refused to grant the motion finding that sufficient evidence existed on several causes of action to allow the matter to be submitted to a jury on those issues. The court dismissed only the claim of False Advertising.

After this ruling Thinkspin, Braderax and M. Seale in an effort to avoid trial settled the remainder of the case with Lands End under undisclosed terms and on November 1, 2006 a default judgment was entered against the sole remaining defendant.

The court’s ruling on the motion for summary judgment stands as precedent in at least that court and with this success it is likely that other Trademark owners with affiliate programs have one more weapon in there battle against their typo-squatters.

US. District Court – Western District of Wisconsin; LANDS END, INC. v. ERIC REMY; Case Number 05-C-0368-C

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