The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (also known as Truth in Domain Names Act), a United States federal law enacted in 1999, is part of A bill to amend the provisions of title 17, United States Code, and the Communications Act of 1934, relating to copyright licensing and carriage of broadcast signals by satellite (S. 1948). It makes people who register domain names that are either trademarks or individual's names with the sole intent of selling the rights to the domain name to the trademark holder or individual for a profit liable to civil action. It was sponsored by Senator Trent Lott on November 17, 1999 and enacted on November 29 of the same year. The United States Code (U.S.C.) is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal Law of the United States. ... The term domain name has multiple related meanings: A name that is entered into a computer (e. ... A trademark, trade mark, ™ or ®[1] is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. ... A lawsuit is a civil action brought before a court in order to recover a right, obtain damages for an injury, obtain an injunction to prevent an injury, or obtain a declaratory judgment to prevent future legal disputes. ... Chester Trent Lott (born October 9, 1941 in Grenada, Mississippi) is a United States Senator from Mississippi and a member of the Republican Party. ... 17 November is also the name of a Marxist group in Greece, coinciding with the anniversary of the Athens Polytechnic uprising. ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Old Farts by the Sometimes-United Nations. ... November 29 is the 333rd (in leap years the 334th) day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ...

In order for a trademark owner to bring a claim under the ACPA, the owner must establish

• the trademark owner’s mark is distinctive or famous;
• the domain name owner acted in bad faith to profit from the mark; and
• the domain name and the trademark are either identical or confusingly similar (or dilutive for famous trademarks).

One of the limitations of the Act is the impact on settling disputes: where two parties have a dispute over a domain name, and the domain name owner has a lessor interest in the domain and is willing to settle the dispute, if the domain name owner offers to exchange the domain name for compensation (such as the cost of reprinting letterhead, business cards, and other expenses), that offer can constitute "acting in bad faith to profit from the mark". This makes domain name disputes harder to resolve.

The act consists of several amendments to the Trademark Act of 1946 to provide protection from Cybersquatters to trademark holders, a section providing similar protections for individuals' names, an amendment to the National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470a(a)(1)(A)), protecting the names of historical site. It also includes a savings clause stating that it does not take away from individuals' rights to free speech, and some amendments to the United States Code removing hyphens from several instances of the word trademark. Most of the act applies retroactively to all domain names, however the damages made possible by the act only apply to domain names registered after it was enacted. According to the U.S. federal law known as the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using a domain name with bad-faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. ... The United States Code (U.S.C.) is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal law of the United States. ...

See also

• Trademark
• Trademark Act of 1946

A trademark, trade mark, ™ or ®[1] is a distinctive sign of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products and services to consumers, and to distinguish the business and its products or services from those of other businesses. ...

External links

• A summary of the full bill at the Library of Congress
• Internet Library of Cybersquatting and Domain Name Disputes, from Sequitur IPS
• FAQ
• Cybertelecom :: ACPA - Federal Internet Law and Regulation