Apple Goes After iTunes.co.uk Owner

From macobserver.com:

Apple Computer has accused a small British company of illegally possessing the domain iTunes.co.uk, and is taking on its owner, demanding it be given control of the Web address. Its owner plans to vigorously fight the iPod maker, saying he registered the domain a month before Apple's application for a British trademark was made public.

I was wondering what the legal grounds for this were, so here they are:

Mr. Cohen said Apple threatened to take other legal action against him, in addition to trying to get control of the domain.


"Initially they were talking about getting a court injunction against us to get control of the domain," Mr. Cohen commented. "They gave up on that idea, but frankly we would have preferred if they had tried to do that because we're actually more confident that we would win in a court in a domain resolution."


Mr. Cohen contends he has a strong case against Apple based simply on the fact he bought the domain before Apple filed for a trademark. He said he registered the iTunes.co.uk domain name on November 7, 2000 as one of a series of generic domain names to forward to various parts of what was then CyberBritain������s network of Web sites.