Mr Nissan registered nissan.com in 1994 as a home page for his computer hardware company, Nissan Computer. He also registered nissan.net in 1996, for a small ISP that he founded.
Nissan Motors sued him in 1999, claiming that the word Nissan is its registered trade mark and therefore the company has the exclusive right to use the name Nissan by itself.
The entrepreneur, an Israeli immigrant, rejected the car company’s allegations arguing that Nissan is his family name and also the name of a month in Hebrew and Arabic. Uzi Nissan also pointed out that the Japanese auto giant already owns and can use the domain name nissanmotors.com.
A federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled that, although Uzi Nissan “is not a cybersquatter”, he altered his web sites to add advertisements and links to on-line car buying sites. The judge also found that the entrepreneur was “clearly capitalising” from the traffic that was coming to web sites in search of Nissan Motors.
The Associated Press reports that Nissan Motors has registered the domain nissancomputer.com and has offered to give it to Uzi Nissan if he is ordered to return his domain names to the car company.
The US District Judge Dean D. Pregerson is expected to decide by November whether the domains in dispute should be returned to Nissan Motors.