After the ruling of the judge, the Academy of Motion Pictures and Science (a professional honorary organization) was muscled out by the publicly traded Internet domain registrar and web hosting company GoDaddy - in connection with the trademark infringement.
Andre Birotte Jr., a U.S. District Court Judge, has ruled in the favor of GoDaddy with a statement that there is not enough proof against the domain distributing giant. And the Academy Awards walked out empty handed, they were actually hoping to receive a compensation up to $30 million.
The Academy Awards filed a case against GoDaddy as they claim that the web hosting company had bad intentions by the way they earned their profit as they have supposedly helped their client make money on sites very much like the ones the Academy Awards own.
Thus, it is under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, that the Oscars' governing body brought to court the popular Internet domain registrar, GoDaddy in 2010. The Academy Awards believes that they have granted domain names that the Academy alleged infringed on its heavily guarded Oscar trademark.
However, judge Andre Birotte had a contrasting opinion with the Academy Awards, she said that the proof were not sufficient that GoDaddy had any intentions to gain profit by using the terms 'Academy Awards' and 'Oscar'.
Judge Andre Birotte stated, "AMPAS having failed to meet its burden of proving that GoDaddy acted with a bad GoDaddy lost of faith intent to profit from any of the AMPAS Marks, and GoDaddy having affirmatively defeated any such finding, the Court must enter judgment in GoDaddy's favor," Andre Birotte added, "Accordingly, the Court need not consider whether any of the remaining 56 Accused Domains are confusingly similar to the AMPAS Marks or determine the appropriate measure of statutory damages."
Judge Andre Birotte also pointed out that all of GoDaddy's clients signed an agreement stating that no third party rights should be compromised, proving that GoDaddy acted on good faith. Judge Birotte concluded that GoDaddy can't be held liable for the actions of the Accused Domains, until a third party will be brought in for the matter of infringement.
