An organized leisure activity session is called a Hoog in Hebrew. the sound H is a gutteral sound made at the back of the throat., as in Hanukkah. This is sometime  transliterated as Ch. The vowel is like the u in Chanuckah / Hanukkah and so the word Hoog could also be transliterated at Chug.

Why is the important?

The developers of “Hoogle” or “hoogel” a search engine for extra curricular and leisure activities http://www.hoogel.co.il/ sued a competing site http://www.hug.co.il/ that is accessible via hug.co.il or chug.co.il or hoog.co.il, claiming passing off, unjust enrichment, copyright infringement, etc.

The hoogle website claimed that adverts placed with them were copied by the competing site, and that this was copyright infringement.

Judge Eitan Orenstein dismissed all claims and awarded damages to the defendants, ruling that:

1.  the name was generic so there was no passing off, cybersquatting or copyright enfringment.
2. the sites were similar to each other, but also were similar to other resource directory sites. There were differences, so there was no passing off or misleading. 
3. Factual data of the type in the listings was not copyright protected.
4. None of the features allegedly plagiarized were sufficiently novel to be protectable

Justice Orenstein dismissed the claims and awarded NIS 50,000 costs to the plaintiffs.

case: 1379/06 (Tel Aviv) Hoogle LTD. and others vs. Eran Raviv, Eran and others 

Comment

the judge is correct to see freedom of competition as more important than claims of unjust enrichment. Likewise the domain names are indeed generic.

Interestingly, there are hints that the judge saw discrepancies in the defendants version of affairs. It seems that the competing website was inspired by hoogle, but there is no grounds to give hoogle a monopoly.

I think the decision is correct.

According to the popular Arab News, following a seminar on Intellectual Property Rights in Saudi Arabia, the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called for the setting up of a special court to look into cases of copyright violations.

It seems that at present  copyright violations cases in the Kingdom are dealt with by different parties including the Ministry of Culture and Information, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, the Customs and the Court of Grievances.

According to Majed Garoub, chairman of the Saudi Legal Center for Training, until now, Saudi authorities has taken action against only some eight thousand out of 100,000 IP complaints.

The most common problem is trademark infringement and domain name problems on the internet. CD related copyright issues are also prevalent. s came second. The seminar has passed resolutions to activate the laws and regulations related to copyright protection.

Based on the success in other countries, Awad Al-Hobaili, legal consultant at the Jeddah chamber believes that a special court to deal with copyright violations would reduce such cases by 80 percent. He is also in favor of patents for technological achievement.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture and Information claims to be addressing the question of copyrights in all aspects of audio-visual artistic production.

We note that where there is a will, such as with Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, the kingdom has been remarkably effective in preventing circulation of boot-leg publications. Nevertheless, we applaud the Saudis on these statements and invite them to join us in regional cooperation to the benefit of all.

We note with satisfaction that at least in the Israel Intellectual Property field, this nasty practice is not occurring. Typing Factor Patent into Google’s search engine did not produce sponsored links of competitors. We urge clients to check this with their company names and trademarks. Knowledge is power. 

The appeal panel overturned the expert’s decision, finding the registration “abusive” due to the respondent’s linkage thereof to commercial websites.

This posting follows on a previous posting where I reported on the Nominet Expert’s decision: 

Transfer of champagne.co.uk to French Bubbly Growers Refused

“Google owns the ‘Gmail’ trademark in over 60 countries worldwide and we have used it ever since we launched the service in 2004,” Google said in an e-mailed statement. “While we regret the German court’s decision, it will in no way affect our ability to continue to provide Web e-mail to our users in Germany. Our German users will continue to use ‘Google Mail’ and enjoy the same experience as users of Gmail worldwide.”

Google lost a similar trademark case to U.K.-based financial services firm Independent International Investment Research (IIR) in 2005. IIR subsidiary Pronet Analytics.com Limited has been offering a Gmail service to currency investors since 2002, according to U.K.-based IT publication The Register.

Generally, the first person to use a mark wins the trademark. In the US, Precision Research claims to have used gmail since  January 1998. The Gospel Music Association has sent members its Gmail e-mail newsletter since 1999.

Its not just gmail, of course. Stelor Productions filed two briefs opposing Google’s trademark registration for Google. Stelor has held a trademark on the term “Googles” for children’s books since 1994 and applied to extend that to computer services, including e-mail, online bulletin boards and general kid-friendly information.

The panel accepted that the plaintiff had trade mark and common law rights in the name Silmarrillion since “The Silmarillion” is the title of one of Tolkien’s books with sales in over 90 countries and went on to rule that the disputed domain names had been registered in bad faith, noting that the respondent had posted the full text of The Silmarillion on the websites,  despite having no rights or legitimate interests in the name.

Case: The JRR Tolkien Estate Limited v Haik Tonoyan, Case No. 04158, 10 May 2007. Ruling being given under Article 22(1)(a) of EC Regulation 874/2004 – Speculative or abusive registrations.