Sunglass Hut International (Nasdaq:RAYS) today announced victory in an Internet trademark dispute against www.aaanet-inc.com, a company using a URL similar to that of the retailer. Sunglass Hut, the leading specialty retailer in sunglasses, claimed that aaanet-inc.'s use of www.sunglasshot.com was "confusingly similar" to its own www.sunglasshut.com URL and should therefore be considered an infringement of the Sunglass Hut trademark.
The dispute was resolved by The National Arbitration Forum in accordance with procedures established by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers. The National Arbitration Forum ruled that the www.sunglasshot.com URL infringed on the Sunglass Hut trademark, ordering www.aaanet-inc. to turn the URL over to Sunglass Hut at no cost, automatically and without further litigation.
"The Internet Age is opening up a whole new world of legal issues for corporations relative to trademark protection," stated Jill Witter, Vice-President, General Counsel for Sunglass Hut International. "This victory confirms our belief that trademark protection extends to the internet. Ideally, this will aid our company and others in any future domain name disputes involving `confusingly similar' trade names."
