Region: Germany

In an incongruous decision, the Higher Regional Court of Hamburg has ruled that the use of the domain name 'public-com.de' and related email address root '@public-com.de' does not infringe rights in the registered trademark and trade name PUBLIKOM because internet users are able to recognize differences in spelling.

28 January 2003

The Regional Court of Essen has ruled that the non-commercial use of the domain name 'castor.de' by anti-nuclear energy activists does not infringe the rights of the owner of the trademark CASTOR. The court held that although the mark is well known in Germany, confusion is unlikely.

13 January 2003

The Hamburg Appeal Court has issued an important decision on the scope of protection afforded by German trademarks. It ruled that a foreign country-code domain name that includes a German trademark does not infringe the mark if the registrant does not offer goods or services in Germany.

10 December 2002

In a dispute involving the domain name 'duisburg-info.de', the Düsseldorf Court of Appeal has ruled that public entities - in this case the City of Duisburg - may not prevent the legitimate use of their names as domain names.

18 November 2002

In a domain name dispute between parties with the same name, the Federal Supreme Court has held that the risk of confusing the parties could be avoided if one party adds his first name to his second-level domain and if both parties make a clarifying statement on their homepage.

18 July 2002

According to a judgment of the District Court of Düsseldorf, the use of words as metatags that are not directly related to the content of a website is an infringement of the German Law against Unfair Competition.

24 May 2002