Ford loses case against 2600 1/Feb/2002
Ford Motors has lost its trademark infringement case against 2600 Enterprises after US Judge Robert Cleland ruled that pointing the domain name ****GeneralMotors.com at Ford Motors’ website was not a violation of Ford’s trademark.
Ford had asked the court to issue an injunction banning 2600.com from linking to the Ford.com website or referring to Ford.com in its DNS records in any way. Ford lawyers argued that 2600’s actions prevented the company from ‘fully exploiting the value of its mark.’
According to this article (
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-826944.html ), Ford’s trademark was not infringed by 2600 as the trademark ‘was not included in the domain name, which insults Ford's biggest competitor, but rather in the programming code which does no more than create a hyperlink to the ford.com site.’
Perhaps the most pertinent comment made by Judge Cleland in his ruling was the following little gem: ‘Trademark law does not permit Plaintiff to enjoin persons from linking to its homepage simply because it does not like the domain name or other content of the linking webpage.’ Ford’s lawyers were sure to be squirming at that comment – or perhaps not, as they are sure to be paid a fat fee for their services irrespective of the outcome.
Despite this victory, all is not yet said and done between Ford and 2600. Ford Motors has now appealed to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in an attempt to overturn Judge Cleland’s ruling.
made the guys make this page
http://www.fordreallysucks.com/index.html
this is a good account of what happend by the guys themselves
http://www.fordreallysucks.com/more_info.html
if you ask me its a stupid thing for ford to try and sue i mean why would you care if ****generalmotors.com linked you to your site?
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