Court Upholds Volkswagen's Web Name

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) â€” A federal appeals court has upheld Volkswagen's right to the Internet domain name ``vw.net,'' which was first registered by an online service provider named Virtual Works.

Tuesday, January 23rd 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) â€” A federal appeals court has upheld Volkswagen's right to the Internet domain name ``vw.net,'' which was first registered by an online service provider named Virtual Works.

A federal judge in Alexandria, Va. last February found that Virtual Works registered vw.net hoping to later sell the address to Volkswagen of America ``for a lot of money.''

The judge ruled that it was a violation of the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and ordered the Internet company to surrender vw.net to the carmaker.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., upheld the ruling Monday. The judges said they found evidence of bad faith by Virtual Works, including an admission that it never did business as ``VW.''

``Virtual Works chose vw.net over other (available) domain names ... because it foresaw the ability to profit from the natural association of vw.net with the VW (trade)mark,'' wrote chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III.

Virtual Works and its law firm could not be located for comment Monday. Volkswagen officials did not immediately return a call for comment.

Court records say Virtual Works contacted Volkswagen in December 1998 and indicated it would auction vw.net to the highest bidder if the automaker did not make an offer within 24 hours, an act the appeals panel described as ``much more than a plain vanilla offer'' to sell an Internet address.

The appeals court said Congress sought to discourage such actions by passing the anticybersquatting law in 1999.