I was reading the post about the guy with NHL.com. And I wonder if he can use the NHL.com to direct traffic to another domain would that be legal. For example, couldn't he use that NHL for another business like "Need Home Logo" but on page load he has a redirect that said if you were looking for a hockey related site, we will direct you there shortly, else press this button to stay in Need Home Logo. I don't see how he could be sue in doing that since Need Home Logo and Nation Hockey League would be considered 2 different businesses fields and he as the owner of Need Home Logo couldn't be told he couldn't direct traffic off his website. And that this site isn't wrong for endorsing he hockey site. If he start this at the beginning would he be on the safe side?
No. Two reasons. One, the obvious intent would be to direct traffic using their mark. Two, the famousness of the mark means that it is probably not limited to the same business type. For example, look up the World Wildlife Fund v. World Wrestling Federation case. Nobody could argue that people would confuse the conservation of animals with a bunch of sweaty, unshaven men in spandex throwing each other around (or maybe one could...), yet the wildlife fund won their court case of tm infringement.
If the second business comes out more successful than the first, it would be okay, right, like in the case with the Yahoo. Yahoo got away, but Apple got sued.
There was already a business named yahoo before yahoo started out. They tried to sue the search engine and lost. There was two Apple companies too. One music and one computer. During one debate they both agree not to go into each other field. However, apple computer later expanded into the other field with ipods and music download. And got sued. In both instance the later business became more sucessfull.
Apple Computer only won one case. They settled the others out of court. The reason they won that last case was that Apple Records had agreed that Apple Computers did not package and sell physical copies of music. That was the terms of the second settlement. A court found that an mp3 player and digital files did not breach the terms of that agreement. The ruling in that case was not really about IP but contract disputes. I didn't find anything about Yahoo.
Win or not they got sued right? If we got sued, most likely we little guys will run into submission, & give them the domain name too as an incentive not to take us to court. I was thinking if .asia came on sale and someone bought sex.asia most likely there is already a sex.com, sex.net sex.etc... And we will end up getting sue all over the place. Of course this example is bad since it uses a generic word like sex, but you get the picture.