•The Supreme People's Court recently issued this detailed and operative judicial Interpretation concerning the disputes on Internet domain name, which shall be the source of law in this field. More and more enterprises create homepages on the Internet for the advertisement of their merchandise, along with the development of computer and the application of Internet. Meanwhile, relevant legal issues have been arising, including those domain name disputes. The issuance of the Interpretation covered the loophole in this field, and will be bound to play an instructive role in the circle of law and enterprises.
According to the Interpretation, jurisdiction over domain names disputes vests in the intermediate court in "the place where a tort is committed", or "the place where the computer terminal the plaintiff used to find the domain name is located in case it is hard to determine the locus delicti (i.e place of offense)", so that it is for the plaintiff's convenience to file lawsuit. Moreover, the Interpretation stipulates in explicit terms four conditions constituting a tort or unfair competition. And the Interpretation enumerates in details five types of malconduct in the item that "the defendant bear malice toward the registration or use of the domain name", which is one of the four conditions mentioned above. Simultaneously, it also prescribes that the court is endowed with the right to find whether the registered trademark at issue is well-known trademark. This right was vested before in the Administration for Industry and Commerce only.
──George Wang