By Thomas Crampton International Herald Tribune

PARIS The new dot-eu Internet address was supposed to offer a convenient pan-European alternative to suffixes like dot-com. But the organization in charge of handing out dot-eu addresses ended up in court last month in a bitter dispute over control of 74,000 domain names ranging from Beethoven.eu to hotelparking.eu.

EURid, the not-for-profit organization in charge of administering dot-eu, blocked full use of 74,000 addresses by three companies attempting to register them, saying the companies were hoarding them for resale.

In return last week for what EURid saw as vigilance, a Belgian court ordered the organization to pay a fine of €25,000, or $32,000, per hour for each name unless it allowed the three companies to transfer ownership of the addresses.

After the court order, EURid released control of the names, said Patrik Lindén, a spokesman for EURid. Lindén declined to discuss the case further, citing appeals.

Paul Keating, a lawyer based in Barcelona who works for the three registrants, also declined to comment, but he released an unofficial English translation of the Dutch-language court documents.

Thomas Schafft, a Munich-based lawyer who specializes in intellectual property at Lovells law firm, said it was "a shame that EURid lost," calling the three companies' attempts to register the names "a particularly nasty attempt to abuse the dot-eu system."

"The image of the dot-eu top level domain could suffer if it is perceived there is unfair distribution of domain names," Schafft said.

Since the introduction of dot-eu last December, 2.1 million domains have been registered by EURid. More than 250 separate disputes over ownership of individual domain names have been resolved through an arbitration mechanism.

Among the disputes was Oxford University's unsuccessful fight to win Oxford.eu from a company with the recently created trademark "Ox & Ford."

EURid said in a news release issued in July that the 74,000 names involved in the court battle had been purchased for profit in a so-called warehousing scheme through which companies buy names en masse with a view to reselling them at a higher price. Such sales for profit would go against the European Union's conception of the domain name, EURid argued in a trial brief.

Europe's intention was to "offer the possibility to companies and physical persons within the European Community to identify themselves in their relationship with the European Community," the EURid brief said. The spirit of dot-eu European identity is thus distinguished from domains like dot-com or dot-org, the brief added.

From the start, EURid has made an explicit effort to keep the dot-eu names from being snapped up for resale. Registration of names was opened over a period of months in which companies and individuals could come forward to claim names.

The first two months, starting in December, were open only to public bodies and to those holding trademarks in EU countries. This period was followed by two months during which companies and individuals based in Europe could register names. Finally, in April, the so-called land rush began, with registration of names open to anyone.

Nonetheless, EURid monitored purchases to avoid the mass buying of names for resale.

In the case of the 74,000 names, EURid acted to prevent three companies registered in Cyprus - Ovidio Ltd., Fausto Ltd. and Gabino Ltd. - from transferring ownership of domain names they had won.

"The domain names were registered in the name of only three registrants, which appear to be paper companies whose only visible intent is to gain cash out of these domain names," EURid alleged in the brief.

For their part, the registration companies assert they selected the generic descriptive-style names to build a legitimate business in so-called "direct navigation."

Capturing traffic through direct navigation is based on the principle that some Internet users prefer to type generic requests like "restaurants" or "traveltickets.com" into their browser address bars, rather than use a search engine like Google or Yahoo, the companies' brief said.

The generic-named pages are made up of hyperlinks relevant to the user's search, making the pages equivalent to targeted keyword searches, the brief said.

In the judgment issued by the Court of First Instance in Brussels, the blocking action by EURid was declared unlawful.

PARIS The new dot-eu Internet address was supposed to offer a convenient pan-European alternative to suffixes like dot-com. But the organization in charge of handing out dot-eu addresses ended up in court last month in a bitter dispute over control of 74,000 domain names ranging from Beethoven.eu to hotelparking.eu.

EURid, the not-for-profit organization in charge of administering dot-eu, blocked full use of 74,000 addresses by three companies attempting to register them, saying the companies were hoarding them for resale.

In return last week for what EURid saw as vigilance, a Belgian court ordered the organization to pay a fine of €25,000, or $32,000, per hour for each name unless it allowed the three companies to transfer ownership of the addresses.

After the court order, EURid released control of the names, said Patrik Lindén, a spokesman for EURid. Lindén declined to discuss the case further, citing appeals.

Paul Keating, a lawyer based in Barcelona who works for the three registrants, also declined to comment, but he released an unofficial English translation of the Dutch-language court documents.

Thomas Schafft, a Munich-based lawyer who specializes in intellectual property at Lovells law firm, said it was "a shame that EURid lost," calling the three companies' attempts to register the names "a particularly nasty attempt to abuse the dot-eu system."

"The image of the dot-eu top level domain could suffer if it is perceived there is unfair distribution of domain names," Schafft said.

Since the introduction of dot-eu last December, 2.1 million domains have been registered by EURid. More than 250 separate disputes over ownership of individual domain names have been resolved through an arbitration mechanism.

Among the disputes was Oxford University's unsuccessful fight to win Oxford.eu from a company with the recently created trademark "Ox & Ford."

EURid said in a news release issued in July that the 74,000 names involved in the court battle had been purchased for profit in a so-called warehousing scheme through which companies buy names en masse with a view to reselling them at a higher price. Such sales for profit would go against the European Union's conception of the domain name, EURid argued in a trial brief.

Europe's intention was to "offer the possibility to companies and physical persons within the European Community to identify themselves in their relationship with the European Community," the EURid brief said. The spirit of dot-eu European identity is thus distinguished from domains like dot-com or dot-org, the brief added.

From the start, EURid has made an explicit effort to keep the dot-eu names from being snapped up for resale. Registration of names was opened over a period of months in which companies and individuals could come forward to claim names.

The first two months, starting in December, were open only to public bodies and to those holding trademarks in EU countries. This period was followed by two months during which companies and individuals based in Europe could register names. Finally, in April, the so-called land rush began, with registration of names open to anyone.

Nonetheless, EURid monitored purchases to avoid the mass buying of names for resale.

In the case of the 74,000 names, EURid acted to prevent three companies registered in Cyprus - Ovidio Ltd., Fausto Ltd. and Gabino Ltd. - from transferring ownership of domain names they had won.

"The domain names were registered in the name of only three registrants, which appear to be paper companies whose only visible intent is to gain cash out of these domain names," EURid alleged in the brief.

For their part, the registration companies assert they selected the generic descriptive-style names to build a legitimate business in so-called "direct navigation."

Capturing traffic through direct navigation is based on the principle that some Internet users prefer to type generic requests like "restaurants" or "traveltickets.com" into their browser address bars, rather than use a search engine like Google or Yahoo, the companies' brief said.

The generic-named pages are made up of hyperlinks relevant to the user's search, making the pages equivalent to targeted keyword searches, the brief said.

In the judgment issued by the Court of First Instance in Brussels, the blocking action by EURid was declared unlawful.

PARIS The new dot-eu Internet address was supposed to offer a convenient pan-European alternative to suffixes like dot-com. But the organization in charge of handing out dot-eu addresses ended up in court last month in a bitter dispute over control of 74,000 domain names ranging from Beethoven.eu to hotelparking.eu.

EURid, the not-for-profit organization in charge of administering dot-eu, blocked full use of 74,000 addresses by three companies attempting to register them, saying the companies were hoarding them for resale.

In return last week for what EURid saw as vigilance, a Belgian court ordered the organization to pay a fine of €25,000, or $32,000, per hour for each name unless it allowed the three companies to transfer ownership of the addresses.

After the court order, EURid released control of the names, said Patrik Lindén, a spokesman for EURid. Lindén declined to discuss the case further, citing appeals.

Paul Keating, a lawyer based in Barcelona who works for the three registrants, also declined to comment, but he released an unofficial English translation of the Dutch-language court documents.

Thomas Schafft, a Munich-based lawyer who specializes in intellectual property at Lovells law firm, said it was "a shame that EURid lost," calling the three companies' attempts to register the names "a particularly nasty attempt to abuse the dot-eu system."

"The image of the dot-eu top level domain could suffer if it is perceived there is unfair distribution of domain names," Schafft said.

Since the introduction of dot-eu last December, 2.1 million domains have been registered by EURid. More than 250 separate disputes over ownership of individual domain names have been resolved through an arbitration mechanism.

Among the disputes was Oxford University's unsuccessful fight to win Oxford.eu from a company with the recently created trademark "Ox & Ford."

EURid said in a news release issued in July that the 74,000 names involved in the court battle had been purchased for profit in a so-called warehousing scheme through which companies buy names en masse with a view to reselling them at a higher price. Such sales for profit would go against the European Union's conception of the domain name, EURid argued in a trial brief.

Europe's intention was to "offer the possibility to companies and physical persons within the European Community to identify themselves in their relationship with the European Community," the EURid brief said. The spirit of dot-eu European identity is thus distinguished from domains like dot-com or dot-org, the brief added.

From the start, EURid has made an explicit effort to keep the dot-eu names from being snapped up for resale. Registration of names was opened over a period of months in which companies and individuals could come forward to claim names.

The first two months, starting in December, were open only to public bodies and to those holding trademarks in EU countries. This period was followed by two months during which companies and individuals based in Europe could register names. Finally, in April, the so-called land rush began, with registration of names open to anyone.

Nonetheless, EURid monitored purchases to avoid the mass buying of names for resale.

In the case of the 74,000 names, EURid acted to prevent three companies registered in Cyprus - Ovidio Ltd., Fausto Ltd. and Gabino Ltd. - from transferring ownership of domain names they had won.

"The domain names were registered in the name of only three registrants, which appear to be paper companies whose only visible intent is to gain cash out of these domain names," EURid alleged in the brief.

For their part, the registration companies assert they selected the generic descriptive-style names to build a legitimate business in so-called "direct navigation."

Capturing traffic through direct navigation is based on the principle that some Internet users prefer to type generic requests like "restaurants" or "traveltickets.com" into their browser address bars, rather than use a search engine like Google or Yahoo, the companies' brief said.

The generic-named pages are made up of hyperlinks relevant to the user's search, making the pages equivalent to targeted keyword searches, the brief said.

In the judgment issued by the Court of First Instance in Brussels, the blocking action by EURid was declared unlawful.