Nissan Motors v. Nissan Computer | |
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Court | United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
Full case name | Nissan Motor Co., a Japanese corporation; Nissan North America, Inc., a California corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Nissan Computer Corporation, a North Carolina corporation; The Internet Center Inc., a North Carolina corporation, Defendants-Appellees. |
Decided | 6 August 2004 [1] |
Court membership | |
Judges sitting | Stephen S. Trott Pamela Ann Rymer Sidney Runyan Thomas |
Nissan Motors v. Nissan Computer was a lengthy court case between the two parties over use of the name Nissan and the domain name nissan.com. [2] The case has received national attention in the U.S. [3] [4] [5]
Beginning in the late 1970s, Datsun began progressively fitting its cars with small "Nissan" and "Datsun by Nissan" badges. The company eventually changed its branding at 1,100 Datsun dealerships. In autumn 1981, Datsun announced that its name would be changed in the United States. [6] Between 1982 and 1986, the company transitioned from its "Datsun, We Are Driven!" to its "The Name is Nissan" campaign. [7] Five years after the name change program was over, cars in some export markets continued to display badges bearing both names and Datsun still remained more familiar than Nissan. [7] [8]
In 1980, Uzi Nissan founded Nissan Foreign Car, an automobile service, in Raleigh, North Carolina. [9] [10] In 1987, Uzi Nissan founded Nissan International, Ltd, an import/export company that traded primarily in heavy equipment and computers. [11] On 14 May 1991, Uzi Nissan founded Nissan Computer Corporation, which provides sales and service of personal computers, servers, and computer parts, as well as internet hosting and development. Nissan Computer registered nissan.com for its use on 4 June 1994, five years prior to Nissan Motor Corporation's interest in the domain. [10] [2]
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Nissan Motors considered Nissan Computer's use of the name to be trademark dilution, and laid claim to the domain by alleging cyber squatting. However, Nissan Computer was named after its owner, Uzi Nissan. [12] [13] [14] Following the outcome of the case, Nissan Motors uses the name nissanusa.com for its U.S. website. [15]
Datsun was a Japanese automobile manufacturer brand owned by Nissan. Datsun's original production run began in 1931. From 1958 to 1986, only vehicles exported by Nissan were identified as Datsun. Nissan phased out the Datsun brand in March 1986, but relaunched it in June 2013 as the brand for low-cost vehicles manufactured for emerging markets. Nissan considered phasing out the Datsun brand for a second time in 2019 and 2020, eventually discontinuing the struggling brand in April 2022.
Nissan Motor Corporation is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the Nissan and Infiniti brands, and formerly the Datsun brand, with in-house performance tuning products under the Nismo and Autech brands. The company traces back to the beginnings of the 20th century, with the Nissan zaibatsu, now called Nissan Group.
The Nissan Z-series is a model series of sports cars manufactured by Nissan since 1969.
The Nissan Maxima is a five-passenger, front-engine, front-drive sedan manufactured and marketed by Nissan as Nissan's flagship sedan primarily in North America, the Middle East, South Korea, and China — across eight generations. The Maxima debuted for model year 1982 as the Datsun Maxima, replacing the Datsun 810.
The Datsun 510 was a series of the Datsun Bluebird sold from 1968 to 1973, and offered outside the U.S. and Canada as the Datsun 1600.
The Nissan Violet is a model of car that appeared in Japan in 1973, and was exclusive to Japanese Nissan dealerships called Nissan Cherry Store as a larger companion to the Nissan Cherry.
The Nissan Bluebird is a compact car produced between 1955 and 2007 with a model name introduced in 1957. It was Nissan's most internationally recognized sedan, known for its dependability and durability in multiple body styles. The Bluebird originated from Nissan's first vehicles, dating to the early 1900s, and its traditional competitor became the Toyota Corona. The Bluebird was positioned to compete with the Corona, as the Corona was developed to continue offering a sedan used as a taxi since the Toyota Crown was growing in size. Every generation of the Bluebird has been available as a taxi, duties that are shared with base level Nissan Cedrics. It is one of the longest-running nameplates from a Japanese automaker. It spawned most of Nissan's products sold internationally, and has been known by a number of different names and bodystyles, including the Auster/Stanza names.
The Nissan Sunny is an automobile built by the Japanese automaker Nissan from 1966 till 2004. In the early 1980s, the brand changed from Datsun to Nissan in line with other models by the company. Although production of the Sunny in Japan ended in 2004, the name remains in use in China and GCC countries for a rebadged version of the Nissan Almera.
The Nissan Caravan is a light commercial van designed for use as a fleet vehicle or cargo van and manufactured by Nissan since 1973. Between 1976 and 1997, a rebadged version of the Caravan sold as the Nissan Homy, which was introduced as an independent model in 1965. Outside Japan, the Caravan was also sold as either the Nissan Urvan or Nissan King Van, or earlier with Datsun badging.
The Datsun Cherry (チェリー), known later as the Nissan Cherry, was a series of subcompact cars which formed Nissan's first front-wheel drive supermini model line.
A substantial car industry was created in Australia in the 20th century through the opening of Australian plants by international manufacturers. The first major carmaker was Ford Australia and the first Australian-designed mass production car was manufactured by Holden in 1948. Australian manufacture of cars rose to a maximum of almost half a million in the 1970s and still exceeded 400,000 in 2004. Australia was best known for the design and production of 'large' sized passenger vehicles. By 2009 total production had fallen to around 175,000 and the Australian market was dominated by cars imported from Asia and Europe.
Dongfeng Motor Corporation Ltd. is a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wuhan, Hubei. Founded in 1969, it is currently the smallest of the "Big Four" state-owned car manufacturers of China with 671,000 sales in 2023, below SAIC Motor, Changan Automobile and FAW Group.
PT Nissan Motor Indonesia is a subsidiary of Nissan Motor Company in Indonesia. The company was founded in 2001 and headquartered in Jakarta, Indonesia. Previously, Nissan vehicles were distributed by PT Indocitra Buana, a joint venture company between Indomobil Group and Bimantara Citra. Together with PT Nissan Motor Distributor Indonesia, these companies acts as both national sales/distribution company and formerly a manufacturing company.
The Nissan Junior was a series of medium-sized pickup trucks built from 1956 until 1982. It was introduced to fill the gap between the smaller, Datsun Bluebird based Datsun Truck, and heavier load capacity Nissans under the Nissan Diesel brand, like the 80-series trucks. After the merger with Prince Motor Company, the Junior and the Prince Miler were combined, sharing most of the characteristics, with the Junior sold at Nissan Bluebird Store Japanese dealerships, and the Miler sold at Nissan Prince Store until 1970.
The Nissan Philippines, Inc. is a joint venture between Nissan Motor Company, Universal Motors Corporation and Yulon Philippines Investment Co. Ltd. for the import and distribution of Nissan automobiles, multi-purpose vehicles (MPV) and sport utility vehicles (SUV) in the Philippines.
The Datsun Go/Go+ is a city car and mini MPV with "5+2" seating capacity that was produced by the Japanese automaker Nissan under the Datsun brand between 2014 and 2022. Named after the "Dat-Go", Datsun's first car launched in the early 20th century, the Go was available in developing markets such as India, South Africa and Indonesia. It is built on the same V platform as the K13 Nissan Micra/March, from which it has inherited much of its components. In 2018, Nissan introduced a crossover derivative called the Datsun Cross, which was previewed as the Datsun Go-cross Concept in 2015. The Cross was only available in Indonesia.
Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad (MYX: 4405), also known as the TCMH Group or simply Tan Chong Motor (TCM) is a Malaysia-based multinational corporation that is active in automobile assembly, manufacturing, distribution and sales, but is best known as the franchise holder of Nissan vehicles in Malaysia. The company was founded in 1957 by two Malaysian entrepreneurs, Tan Yuet Foh and Tan Kim Hor, with ambitions of importing and selling Datsun cars from Japan. Tan Chong Motor Holdings Berhad was incorporated on 14 October 1972, and in 1974, the company was listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.
Nissan South Africa Pty Ltd is an automobile manufacturer based in Rosslyn, South Africa, and a subsidiary of Nissan.
The Nissan Magnite is a subcompact crossover SUV manufactured and marketed by Nissan. Unveiled in October 2020, the Magnite is placed below the Kicks in Nissan's global SUV lineup, making it the smallest Nissan crossover SUV worldwide.
Nissan Motor Co. (Australia) Pty. Ltd. is the Australian subsidiary of Nissan and a former automobile manufacturer currently headquartered in Mulgrave, Victoria. The company assembled passenger cars of the Japanese brand Nissan.