Quoted on www.lukeisback.com: Fred the patent lawyer writes from San Jose: There is actually an article in IP Magazine that I got in the mail today about porn. Apparently, Lexington Steele hired a San Francisco trademark lawyer to chase the dimwits who registered “lexingtonsteele.com” as their domain name without his permission, and he was able to get them to cough it up. His lawyer, Holly Pranger, put out a press release regarding her win. Sounds like she’s trying to drum up more similarly situated clients. So even in my lofty ivory tower of intellectual property, the world of smut has crept in.
Gene sez: Five month old news. It was in January that Pranger announced a victory in the fight to regain LexingtonSteele.com from Russian Communications, a cyber-squatter. In a press release issued at that time, Steele is quoted as saying that he had been trying to get the domain back for years. According to the press release, Russian Communications used Steele’s name and his picture on the website to sell products.
The press release also goes on to say that prior to the settlement, Steele operated and continues to operate LexSteele.com and LexonBlondes.com, both being his official presence on the Internet. “BrainCash and SteeleCash administers Steele’s sites, which are doing exceptionally well,” the press release reads.
Pranger is a principal of the Pranger Law Group and an attorney specializing in intellectual property. The press release explains that Pranger regained control of the domain by filing a domain dispute through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers’ (ICANN) rules and submitted to arbitration through the National Arbitration Forum.
According to the press release, the process took about two months, and Steele’s registering his name as a trademark contributed to the judgment in his favor. Pranger contrasted the ICANN arbitration process, which takes just a few months and costs under $15,000 to complete, against suing in federal court, which can easily run over $50,000 to $500,000 in legal fees and sometimes take years to resolve. Winning in a federal court allows for recovery of fees and costs associated with the lawsuit, however, while resolution through ICANN does not.
“The beauty of the ICANN process,” says Pranger in the press reelease, “is that you can go through it and quickly get the domain name back, but still bring a federal action to recover your damages,”