The Nizza Group, set up by Troy Jahaver and intellectual property lawyer Frank Weyer, announced on 6th January that it had been awarded a patent for a method and system of assigning identical URL and e-mail addresses to members of a group – for example, assigning John Doe of Widgets plc the web address www.john.widgets.com and the e-mail address [email protected].
Last week the Group announced that it had filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Central District of California against Network Solutions and Register.Com for infringement of that patent.
The suit alleges that the companies are infringing the Nizza Group's patent by offering registrations of domain names and e-mail addresses under the .name top-level domain.
Registrations under the .name were, until recently, restricted to the format www.john.doe.name, known as a third level domain. However, last Friday the .name registry, the Global Name Registry, announced the introduction of second level domain names such as www.john.name.
The Global Name Registry is not itself named in the lawsuit because, as Weyer explained to CNET News.com, "Network Solutions and Register.com are the retailers that sell the domain names". He continued, "GNR manages the registry, and they're also potential infringers. Initially, we thought it would be easiest to proceed against Network Solutions and Register.com."
The complaint seeks damages and an injunction against further infringement by the two domain name registrars, but the Nizza Group admitted that it is hoping for a settlement.