Legal Question in Intellectual Property in Pennsylvania
Legal Question
I have a question about internet law and intellectual property. Is it legal to create a website very similar to another person's website and make a profit? For example, let's say the other party's website is www.jjwings.com and my website is www.wingsjj.com The other party is doing heavy advertising and I am doing none but getting hits, possibly through their marketing. Could I be sued? Are the websites too obviously similar? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Legal Question
You are astute to ask. Yes, there are various lawsuits and domain name arbitrations taking place across the country in which various owners of web sites bring action against folks who set up websites that profit from hits that arise from mispellings (er ... mis-spellings) of the Internet address. Sometimes that's called "typo-squatting" -- a term derived from the neologism "cybersquatting" as used in the federal Anti Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act."
A couple of high-profile recent examples are Lance Armstrong's successful arbitration against cybersquatters who had adopted www.livestrongbracelets.net and www.talk-livestrong.com while he was promoting LiveStrong bracelets for charity, and a case against a guy who had set up "foxwood.com" to typo-squat on the domain of the largest Native American casino, Foxwoods Resort.
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