A man who purloined various internet domain names, in the hope of getting money from companies with names that resembled those domains, has been ordered to stop his activities on the grounds that he was violating trademark law. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco found Dennis Toeppen was effectively trying to extort money from the companies. He offered to sell the domains ‘panavision.com’ and ‘panaflex.com’ to Panavision Corp which owned the trademark on the names, for $13,000. Toeppen argued, unsuccessfully, that the names existed only in cyberspace and no in any specific location in which Panavision did business, and therefore did not infringe its trademark. He also said as his use of the domain was not commercial it did not violate the law. However, the court thought otherwise, finding him to have violated both federal and state trademark dilution laws and ordered him to cease the practice. Toeppen had also asked Lufthansa, Delta Airlines, Eddie Bauer and Neiman Marcus for fees ranging between $10,000 and $15,000, to give up his control of domains that resembled their trademarked names.
