(Jeon Su-yong, jsy@chosun.com )
The civil affairs department of the Seoul District Prosecutor¡¯s Office declared in favor of Sony, Thursday, which had been sued by a Lee after he refused to accept a decision made by the Legal and Organization Affair's Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization to transfer his domain, which includes the name ¡®Sony¡¯ to the company.
"Considering the fact that Lee made a proposal to Sony to sell the domain name at a high price and the fact that regular people could naturally think of the site as one related with Sony, Lee's domain registration could damage Sony's name," reads the written decision of the court.
Two year ago, after Sony announced that it was going to establish a network bank for financial services, Lee bought the domain, 'www.sonybank.com' in advance and requested that the company pay US$2,500 dollars. He filed a lawsuit against Sony when the World Intellectual Property Organization decided that he should transfer the domain to Sony.
The judgment is seen as a ruling against cyber squatters, who buy Internet domain names of famous people or companies to sell them for high prices.
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