Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s best-known company and one of the world’s leading manufacturers of mobile phones, is embroiled in a court
Samsung, the world’s largest maker of computer memory chips, recently won a hearing at the country’s Internet Address Dispute Resolution Committee which ruled that the domain name should be handed over to Samsung.”We have been using the domain name for products and businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with computers and monitors,” the supply chain was quoted as saying in the lawsuit documents.
“It is totally unfair to deprive us of a legal claim to the domain name even though we have never violated Samsung Electronics’ trademarks,” it said.
The company claimed that if the electronics giant were allowed to continue monopolising the use of a common word like “sens” as its trademark it would amount to granting Samsung preferential treatment.
Neither company could be reached for comment during the national holiday of Chuseok, which runs from September 24 to 26.
The dispute comes as the increasingly crowded net faces the problem of “cybersquatting” globally in which “cybersquatters” register Internet domain names that are similar to those of widely recognised trademarks or company names.