The sale or license of the domain name to someone else for some other purpose does not eliminate the dilution. Whether internet registration will ultimately be held to permit any form of this kind of preemptive squatting is not before the court. The Act requires more than proof that an alleged diluter has used a famous trademark in commerce, and that the effect is to dilute the capacity of the trademark to identify goods or services, to entitle the trademark holder to injunctive relief. The Act also requires the court to consider the equities as between the parties. They allege that they are providing internet services to their licensees that the licensees could not offer for themselves, i.e., the ability to allow multiple uses of the same surnames as domain names, and the ability to spread the cost of maintaining the domain name registrations among all of the users.
Plaintiffs contend that none of defendants' arguments is apt.
They contend that it does not authorize the registration of any domain names that are commonly used by others to identify themselves, not for the purpose of use by the registrant as domain names, but rather for sale or license to others. The court agrees. This is not a case involving a dispute over a domain name between persons or entities that have previously used the name to identify themselves or their products. Moreover, anyone who desires to use any of those 12,000 names for any purpose, other than as an e-mail address, is entirely precluded from doing so. The court is extremely dubious that licensing domain names for use as e-mail addresses is defendants' true business.