The Battle Over Chicago2016.com
The Chicago Olympic bid committee who in 2006 launched a bid to host the summer Olympic games in 2016 will most likely launch a WIPO claim for the domain name Chicago2016.com against one Stephen Frayne Jr.
Frayne, an MBA student who currently owns the domain name Chicago2016.com also owns Chicago’s rival bid’s Tokyo2016.com and 40 other city name / year number domain combinations.
The USOC, who hold the trademarked “Chicago 2016″ term stated on the Chicagoist website:
“We certainly see Chicago2016.com as the logical default domain for our site, and we believe having someone else control it is misleading for people seeking information about Chicago’s bid,” said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, a moniker protected by trademark. …”I can tell you this is absolutely not about free speech, but about the natural domain for our site, and the domain name that is rightfully ours.”
Considering the recent history of WIPO claims it’s very hard to see how Frayne will keep this domain name.
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9 Responses to “The Battle Over Chicago2016.com”
September 18th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I just “picked” up Pick Chicago dot com from the daily drop not long ago. Looks like I just found my end user…!
September 18th, 2008 at 11:13 pm
I hope he keeps his domain. If the city didn’t want someone to have this domain, it should by all the domains from chicago2001.com to chicago2999.com
I believe it’s belong to Frayne the rule is first come first served…
September 18th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
buy and not by is the correct in the above post.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
You are actually wrong, it’s “a moniker protected by trademark” not “a moniker protected buy trademark”
September 19th, 2008 at 12:04 am
It is interesting that chicag2016.org was registered on 2004-08-12 and Chicago2016.com was registered 4 days earlier on August 08, 2004. The trademark (5 in total) were filed in November 2006 is interesting, over a year later. The Chicago2016.com domain was in use for a year before the ORG owners filed for the TM. Considering that the US Olympic Committee is a Congressionally chartered NPO makes either the GOV or ORG extension the best place for their site and not the commercial COM. I hope Stephen wins this one.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Chicago2016.com was registered on August 8th, 2004. The USOC was granted a Trademark on various uses of this term between late 2007 and early 2008. This goes to show the bullishness of some people. They think they are allowed access to the domain because they got a trademark for it after this guy bought the domain and put a site up? Though, I will not dispute that the content on the domain makes it a very interesting case. Is this TM infringement, or a truly great fan site about the Olympic bid?
September 19th, 2008 at 12:28 am
…ex post facto…
September 19th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Interesting! I have “perth2024.com” wonder if he wants to buy it….
September 19th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
They already filed a wipo claim. This lawsuit was filed after the wipo claim.