Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

AOL has sued file-swapping service Aimster, alleging that Aimster is using the AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) trade mark to deliberately confuse AOL customers. The lawsuit comes just one month after a US arbitration panel ruled that the domain name aimster.com should be transferred to the ISP division of AOL Time Warner.

A split 2-1 decision by a panel of the National Arbitration Forum ruled that the domain name and other similar names owned by Aimster were confusingly similar to AOL’s trade mark in the AIM brand, were registered and being used in bad faith, and were owned without legitimate rights or interests. Aimster has since asked a court to overturn that decision.

Aimster’s CEO Johnny Deep has said that the Aimster name was originally derived from two sources, and neither is related to AOL’s AIM service. Mr Deep’s daughter is nicknamed Aimee and she serves as an unofficial mascot to the operation. Also, the Aimster corporate logo includes a bull’s eye.

However, although it has since been re-configured, when Aimster originally launched 10 months ago, it piggybacked its service on AOL’s AIM platform and most people assumed the name was a reference to AIM and Napster.

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