Washington Post v. Washintonpost.com

‘‘‘Citation:’’’ Washington Post Co. v. Washingtonpost.com, Civ. A. No. 99-646-A (E.D. Va. May 7, 1999).

Factual Background
Plaintiffs owned the THE WASHINGTON POST and WASHINGTONPOST.COM trademarks in connection with newspapers and Internet services. Defendants were "typosquatters," who registered the domain name "washintonpost.com" (defendants omitted the letter "g") and displayed pornographic materials on the corresponding website. The court granted plaintiffs' motion for an ex parte temporary restraining order, finding that plaintiffs' marks were distinctive and famous and that defendants' use of the "washintonpost.com" domain name for a pornographic site tarnished and therefore diluted plaintiffs' marks. Defendants were thus enjoined from further operation of the offending website or any other site identified by a domain name consisting of a colorable imitation of the plaintiffs' trademarks.

This page uses content from Finnegan’s Internet Trademark Case Summaries. This entry is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.