"Franchisors Brandish Pair of Powerful Weapons in the War on Cybersquatters"
Franchising World (10/00) No. 1041-73111, P. 30; Plave, Lee J.

Franchisors throughout the country, along with many other businesses, have been frustrated for years with the prevalence of cybersquatting, the intentional registering of an Internet address containing the name or trademark of another company by individuals looking for profit. However, two new legal weapons are now available to combat the problem: the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names' (ICANN) Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). The ACPA, signed into law by President Clinton just before the start of the new millennium, provides trademark owners with fewer obstacles on their path toward gaining the domain names they deserve. The measure, which applies to registered trademarks, unregistered trademarks, and individuals' names, allows a trademark owner to bring a claim under the Lanham Act if another party registers, traffics in, or uses the trademark owner's name or mark--or one that is confusingly similar to, or dilutive of, the mark; and has done so with a "bad faith intent to profit." ICANN's UDRP, meanwhile, dictates that cybersquatting complaints be turned over to a single arbitrator or a panel of three arbitrators, who will quickly and efficiently determine the outcome of the complaint based on the complaining party's ability to prove three factors: 1) the respondent's domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; 2) the respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in respect of the domain name; and 3) the respondent's domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.