Today I came across an interesting article on a trade mark case: Nissan vs. Nissan. I have to admit that I never heard of this dispute before - and even when I visited Nissan.com I was surprised not to see the Nissan Motors website.

After reading the story behind the case (the link presents only one side of the story) the entire trial did become very unfair. I was most intrigued by the line:

DECEMBER - 1999, Initial Filing. More then five years after I registered nissan.com, legal action was instituted by Nissan Motor seeking $10,000,000 in damages, and to restrain me from the use of MY family name for business purposes on the Internet.

Why did they ask so much from the beginning? The claim against the domain name wouldn't have been so severe if it wasn't for the damage claim. I'm curious to know what would have been the outcome if Nissan was just a random name and not the last name of the person. Is the 'first usage right' - even before the existence of the trademark - not strong enough to defend in such a case?

In Google vs Gmail.de, a similar trial - Google lost the case in Germany, but they promised to action in other countries as well. As others have pointed out, it's not very hard for a rich corporation to sue their victim until they run out of money to defend themselves.