Shields v. Zuccarini

John Zuccarini appeals from the district court's grant of
summary judgment and award of statutory damages and
attorneys' fees in favor of Joseph Shields under the new
Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act ("ACPA" or
"Act"). In this case of first impression in this court
interpreting the ACPA, we must decide whether the district
court erred in determining that registering domain names
that are intentional misspellings of distinctive or famous
names constitutes unlawful conduct under the Act. We
must decide also whether the district court abused its
discretion by assessing statutory damages of $10,000 per
domain name. Finally, we must decide whether the court
erred in awarding attorneys' fees in favor of Shields based
on its determination that this case qualified as an
"exceptional" case under the ACPA.

Shields, a graphic artist from Alto, Michigan, creates,
exhibits and markets cartoons under the names "Joe
Cartoon" and "The Joe Cartoon Co." His cr eations include
the popular "Frog Blender," "Micro-Gerbil" and "Live and
Let Dive" animations. Shields licenses his cartoons to others for display on T-shirts, coffee mugs and other items,
many of which are sold at gift stores acr oss the country. He
has marketed his cartoons under the "Joe Cartoon" label
for the past fifteen years.

On June 12, 1997, Shields registered the domain name
joecartoon.com, and he has operated it as a web site ever
since. Visitors to the site can download his animations and
purchase Joe Cartoon merchandise. Since April 1998, when
it won "shock site of the day" from Macr omedia, Joe
Cartoon's web traffic has increased exponentially, now
averaging over 700,000 visits per month.

In November 1999, Zuccarini, an Andalusia,
Pennsylvania "wholesaler" of Internet domain names,1
registered five world wide web variations on Shields's site:
joescartoon.com, joecarton.com, joescartons.com,
joescartoons.com and cartoonjoe.com. Zuccarini's sites
featured advertisements for other sites and for credit card
companies. Visitors were trapped or"mousetrapped" in the
sites, which, in the jargon of the computer world, means
that they were unable to exit without clicking on a
succession of advertisements. Zuccarini received between
ten and twenty-five cents from the advertisers for every
click.

In December 1999, Shields sent "cease and desist" letters
to Zuccarini regarding the infringing domain names.

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Click the case caption above for the full text of the court's opinion.

Affirmed.

Unknown

Unknown

This case is an example of the rapidly developing law relating to the Internet.