Northern Light Technology, Inc. v. Northern Lights Club

236 F.3d 57 (2001)

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Northern Light Technology, Inc. v. Northern Lights Club

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit
236 F.3d 57 (2001)

Facts

In 1996 Northern Light Technology, Inc. (Northern Light) (plaintiff) registered the domain name northernlight.com and filed registration papers for the Northern Light service mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Northern Light then operated a search engine on northernlight.com. A month after Northern Light registered its domain name, Jeff Burgar (defendant), a resident of Alberta, Canada, registered northernlights.com, allegedly as the website for his Northern Lights Club (defendant), which had no members. The website was not active. Burgar also registered thousands of other domain names containing the names of popular people and organizations. After USA Today ran a story on Northern Light that mistakenly identified its search engine site as northernlights.com, Northern Light attempted to purchase northernlights.com from Burgar. The parties could not agree to a sale, and northernlights.com later created an active site listing northernlight.com as a member of the Northern Lights Community. After sending a cease-and-desist letter that received no response, Northern Light filed suit against Burgar and the Northern Lights Club (collectively, Burgar), asserting among other things a claim under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, in federal court in Massachusetts. Burgar traveled to Massachusetts to attend a hearing on the court’s personal jurisdiction over Burgar and the merits of Northern Light’s claims. Just before the hearing, Northern Light’s agent physically served process on Burgar. Following the hearing, the district court entered an injunction requiring northernlights.com to post a disclaimer on its portal page. Burgar appealed, arguing that the court lacked personal jurisdiction.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Stahl, J.)

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