by Alecks P. Pabico

WHAT'S IN a domain name? In a profit-motivated world, this hierarchically structured character string no longer just serves the neutral purpose of identifying an Internet site. These days, a domain name has gained currency as an invaluable tool in the marketing schemes of many enterprises lured to cyberspace gone recklessly commercialized.

No wonder Internet firms have linked their business identity to their domain names. Even non-Internet-based businesses have sought domain strings that match or approximate their corporate names. But many companies have come to grips with this reality rather belatedly, and are discovering that others have beaten them to their own domain names.

What have often ensued in the mad scramble for domain name registration are fierce battles waged in the courtroom. Which is what local telecommunications giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) has thought best to do after finding out it could not claim pldt.com for its own. In the process, it has given the country its first domain name dispute case.

PLDT alleges in its P1.35-million lawsuit that Gerry Kaimo, registered owner of pldt.com, has infringed on its trademark and engaged in unfair competition for using the said tradename on his Web site (www.pldt.com). Included in PLDT’s intellectual property case as Kaimo’s co-defendant is the anti-metering advocacy group, Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications, Inc. (PLDTI).

In its complaint, PLDT argues that it has the sole and exclusive right over the name or mark “PLDT,” claiming that the company has continuously used it for more than 70 years in its dealings with subscribers and clients, and in transactions with other corporations. That exclusivity, the complaint alleges, has been violated as a result of Kaimo and PLDTI’s “unauthorized appropriation and registration of ‘PLDT.com’ as a domain name.”

In his testimony, Horacio Lavides, PLDT media division chief, also insists that such unauthorized appropriation and registration of the PLDT tradename resulted in his company’s failure to register the tradename as its own domain name. PLDT had no other recourse but to settle for the domain name pldt.com.ph, he adds.

Lawyer Teodoro Cruz Jr., counsel for defendant Kaimo, counters, though, that PLDT applied for registration of the service mark “PLDT” with the then Bureau of Patents, Trademarks and Technology Transfer (now Intellectual Property Office) only on November 19, 1997. To date, he points out, this government office has yet to issue a certificate of trademark registration to PLDT.

“Whois” queries at the Web site of Network Solutions, Inc. (NSI), the exclusive government contractor chosen by the National Science Foundation to register second-level names under the top-level domains .com, .org and .net, also tend to belie PLDT’s claim. A “whois” query is an online search that is usually done to check if a domain name has already been registered with the NSI. Doing it recently, i found out that the registration date of pldt.com under Kaimo’s name is July 21, 1998—more than two years after PLDT registered pldt.com.ph through the PH Domain Registry for Philippine domains on March 15, 1996.

NSI records also show that PLDT registered another domain name, pldt.net, last October 27, 1997.

Why PLDT never bothered to register pldt.com ahead of his client, Kaimo, Cruz says can only indicate that PLDT “had virtually waived and abandoned any rights and interests over the (said) domain name.”

The reason could also be that there was another domain name holder at the time. In fact, there were two entities that held pldt.com prior to Kaimo. One was the Yutivo Corporation in 1995 and more recently, Webscape Philippines, Inc. in 1998. When Webscape failed to renew registration of the domain name, it became available to anyone who could pay the registration fee of $70.

Network Solutions adopts a “first come, first served” policy for registration of second-level domain names. It does not determine the legality of the domain name registration, or otherwise evaluate whether the registration or use may infringe upon the rights of a third party. It deems the entity applying for a domain name solely responsible for selecting its own domain name.