Agmon Law Republishes Landmark 1996 Internet Law Publication

In 1996, while studying for my LL.M. at The George Washington University Law School, I co-authored one of the internet’s earliest law-focused websites.

“What’s in a Name?” examined a question that was genuinely unsettled at the time: what happens when domain names and trademark law collide? These were different days. Trademark law was entirely territorial. Domain names were first-come, first-served. And nobody — not the courts, not Congress, and not many other — had clear answers.

We catalogued the earliest disputes: McDonald’s paying to a charity to obtain its own domain from a journalist. MTV suing its own VJ. Hasbro fighting an adult website over “candyland.com.” A Sacramento TV station registering its competitors’ call signs “for fun.” We called domain name “grabbing”.

We proposed criteria for an international reform of the domain name system — including geographic and industry-specific top-level domains — that anticipated in some part what would come to be.

Nearly 30 years later, while searching for some old documents, I found a printed copy (the original website was taken down many years ago).

I’ve republished most of the original work on the Agmon Law website so we can have a bit of history archived electronically. The text is unchanged. The original case summaries, resource links, and proposed solutions are all there.

Some of it is a vivid reminder of how much has changed. Other parts show that nothing has changed. All of it is, I think, a useful piece of the history of internet law.

You can access it here: https://lnkd.in/gmFsSbcc

With thanks to my co-authors Stacey Halpern and David Pauker, and always to our advisors at the time the late Professor Harold Wegner and Professor David Post.

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