University of Florida won a dispute in the National Arbitration Forum over the domain FloridaGators.com. Backstory of this decision is quite interesting. FloridaGators is a common name for all student sports teams of the University, including baseball, basketball and American football teams. These sports and university level sports in general are very popular in the US. The system of sports training in the University of Florida is considered one of the best in the country from 1983. This is why it is not surprising that the name FloridaGators could be considered a brand.
A resident of Florida used this and registered FloridaGators.com domain way back in 1997. He created a webpage that for many years was considered to be almost the official website of the University sports teams by visitors and advertisers. However in March of this year, University of Florida finally decided to clean up the mess. It sent a letter to the webpage’s owner demanding that they stopped their activities and at the same time filed a suit to the National Arbitration Forum.
We should pay tribute to the hard work and ingenuity of the domain owner. In a matter of days he has completely changed his webpage into a resource about alligators that live in Florida (the word “gator” is used in American slang to refer to these animals). The page now features a lot of related information, photos, videos and even ads of products made of crocodile leather.
However, National Arbitration Forum hasn’t appreciated all this trouble. The proof of webpage’s previous activity presented by the University of Florida was considered quite convincing and the University will soon own FloridaGators.com. The only unclear part in this story is what the University was waiting for all these 18 years?
