Take-Two loses out on bioshock.com

By Tom Bramwell Published 26 August, 2010

Squatter keeps hold of precious domain.

Take-Two has lost its battle to take control of the domain name bioshock.com after the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ruled in favour of a company that basically runs a silly landing page on it.

According to the detailed ruling (thanks Gamasutra), bioshock.com became available at the end of October 2004 when the original registrant, Chem-Pro, let it lapse. BioShock itself was first announced at the start of October.

However, for reasons not fully explained, nothing happened with the domain until December that year when Name Administration, Inc snapped it up.

Take-Two told the WIPO that previews of BioShock had been hitting since October and that the domain's new owner must have known that and registered it with that in mind. Take-Two also pointed out that Name Administration has previous - it used to own taketwointeractive.com until it gave it to the publisher after a complaint.

However, Name Administration retorted that Take-Two didn't actually file a trademark on an "intent-to-use" basis for BioShock until November 2005, almost a full year after it bought the domain name.

The game itself didn't come out until August 2007, and Name Administration had a bit of a pop at Take-Two about that too.

"The suggestion that [announcing a game] acts as some sort of placeholder 'right' for the nearly four years before the Complainant actually released a product would not only confer such a 'right' against all known principles of trademark law, but would do so apparently for an indefinitely long period of time," it protested.

WIPO then basically agreed.

"The Panel finds that the publication of an interview with the game developer and the announcements of the release of the BioShock videogame in certain blogs and on videogame web sites described by the Complainant are insufficient on their own to establish a common law trademark right prior to the date of the Domain Name registration," it ruled.

It also said that the name wasn't unique anyway - Johnson & Johnson wanted to use it at one point for cleaning products. (Much as we like the game, that would have been awesome.)

Bioshock.com then - your first stop for random links to "Telescopes", "Hazardous Material Training" and, er, domainnamesales.com. Correct in law but not in spirit, perhaps.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • nasanu #1 1 year ago

    First come first serve...

  • UncleLou #2 1 year ago

    Bit of a weird decision. I've made pretty good experiences with the WIPO in the past though when it comes to domain disputes.

  • Death-Jester #3 1 year ago

    As much as I dislike domain squatting, I am glad to see they won because the law is on their side, rather than Take-Two winning just because they are a big company and can throw money/lawyers at the problem.
    Edited by 1 at 26/08/10 @ 09:00

  • MerricK #4 1 year ago

    Ha! In your face!

  • UncleLou #5 1 year ago

    First come first serve...

    Well, fortunately, that isn't true. In fact, the whole point of these proceedings is to break the "first come first serve" rule in cases where it seems inappropriate.

  • Hypercube #6 1 year ago

    First come first serve...

    More like, 'you snooze - you lose'. Take-Two dawdled, and when someone gazumped them they tried legal action.

    In this case, I would agree with the judgement. They should have pulled their finger out.

    Now, does anyone want to buy my "scienceshock", "engineeringshock" and "mathshock" domains?

  • Ryboy #7 1 year ago

    Why isn't he just selling the domain to them for a small fortune?!

  • el_pollo_diablo #8 1 year ago

    Domain squatters are scum. Legal or not this was the wrong decision.

  • alimokrane #9 1 year ago

    I am finding this whole thing quite hilarious, actually. Wouldn't the money, T2 spent on the legal battle, be better spent trying to buy the domain name from the owner instead of fighting them to get it. What a bloody joke!

  • SilverInfinity #10 1 year ago

    @alimokrane

    "I am finding this whole thing quite hilarious, actually. Wouldn't the money, T2 spent on the legal battle, be better spent trying to buy the domain name from the owner instead of fighting them to get it. What a bloody joke!"

    That would be a little thing called common sense ... I bet the legal department said to the execs or whoever that they could win it without paying for it.

  • yogi #11 1 year ago

    "Johnson & Johnson wanted to use it at one point for cleaning products"

    Bioshock - the big daddy that kills 99.9% of all known household germs (Warning: product may cause domestic dystopia)
    Edited by 2 at 26/08/10 @ 10:49

  • UncleLou #12 1 year ago

    I am finding this whole thing quite hilarious, actually. Wouldn't the money, T2 spent on the legal battle, be better spent trying to buy the domain name from the owner instead of fighting them to get it. What a bloody joke!

    The WIPO proceedings are pretty cheap. Domains from domain squatters aren't. Besides, not a terrible good idea to encourage domain squatting, don't you think?

  • hardtech #13 1 year ago

    Despite it being legal its not ethical, and in this case I see a lot of Tim Langdell.

  • kosigan #14 1 year ago

    How can it be squatting when the domain was registered over a year before the trademark application? Should big companies be allowed to take any domain they want at any time just because they want to use the name?

  • makeamazing #15 1 year ago

    I think if the page only has these pointless adverts on, then the domain registration should take it back and then offer it to the highest bidder. I really dont understand who benefits from thousands of webpages with just crappy page with links on...

  • Acrid #16 1 year ago

    Take-Two's own fault really, they should have trademarked it earlier, I'm off to buy BioShockinthesky.com

  • kangarootoo #17 1 year ago

    "Why isn't he just selling the domain to them for a small fortune?!"

    I'm sure that will follow now their claim to it has been thwarted.


    @el_pollo_diablo

    "Legal or not this was the wrong decision."

    But what else could have possible been the outcome? Are we saying now that legal bodies should ignore the law as and when they think it "is wrong"? If so, who would decide when the law could be ignored? For every situation in which ignoring a law could have a positive result, there will be thousands more where the opposite would be the case.

    The difference in the case of Tim Langdell is that the legal basis of his actions was never truly proved.

  • loopy #18 1 year ago

    Well, whatever you think of the decision, legally or ethically, the lesson is clear: buy any domain names you think you might want to use before announcing projects publicly. It's not like domain names cost a fortune to maintain now is it? Especially for large multi-national publishing companies. You can always let them lapse later if you don't need/want them... doh!
    Edited by 1 at 26/08/10 @ 14:45

  • SheffieldSteel #19 1 year ago

    Just another way in which the game industry makes the world a better place for everyone - by driving a few unfortunate web browsing individuals, and hence a tiny amount of money, in the direction of organisations which are otherwise completely without merit.

  • Eurolamer #20 1 year ago

    Seriously, is there anything really wrong with http://www.bioshockgame. com? Movies have to add the suffix 'movie' or 'film' to their webpage URLs all the time. Worth going to court for? And presumably spending a whole wad of $$$?

    Silly

  • Phishfood #21 1 year ago

    You snooze you lose.

  • alcides #22 1 year ago

    BIOSHOCKER, if they own the property, there's no reason to call them "squatters"