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UNAUTHORIZED USE OF FA-MOUS MARK AS AN INTERNET NAME VIOLATES FTL
In several past cases, the FTC has ruled that where the name or other mark of a company is generally known to relevant businesses or to consumers, its registration as an Internet domain name or its use in a web page title tag by a person other than the owner violates Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law (FTL).
In a 2000 civil judgment in a case concerning the registration of another's well-known mark as an Internet name, the Taichung District Court held that such registration violated Article 20 of the FTL, and that the defendant was not entitled to use wording identical or similar to that of the mark as his Internet domain name or as the user-name portion of his e-mail address. The court ordered the defendant to cancel his regis-tration of the infringing domain name with the Taiwan Network Information Center.
The court stated that in the Internet world, do-main names serve a similar function to street addresses. Because on the Internet there are countless web sites belonging to individuals, businesses and government agencies, Internet users need to use domain names in order to connect to particular web sites. If a domain owner chooses a specific domain name to rep-resent his business or type of activity, so as to enable Internet users to make a connection be-tween the domain name and his company name, trademark or service mark, this is conducive to Internet users' accessing the site, and conse-quently enhances the domain owner's opportu-nities to trade or to derive other commercial benefit. Thus an enterprise's use of its company name or web site name as its Internet domain name has the effect of guiding Internet users in distinguishing its products or services, and therefore such a domain name falls within the meaning of a symbol representing the operations or services of the domain owner, as referred to in Article 20 of the FTL.
Accordingly, if the company name, web page name, domain name or other mark identifying the products or services of a business are gener-ally known to relevant businesses or consumers, and another business uses an identical or similar name in relation to products or services supplied by its own operations, such as to create confusion with the products or services of the first business, such use contravenes Article 20 of the FTL. Further, such an act takes unfair advantage of another's commercial reputation to reduce ad-vertising costs and gain commercial advantage, may mislead the public and thereby affect the orderly conduct of trade, or may deprive another of the opportunity to conduct electronic business, marketing, advertising and other business de-velopment activities on the Internet. Accord-ingly, the victim is entitled to seek the cessation of such infringement under Articles 20 and 30 of the FTL.