Business people are sometimes seen to roll their eyes when they
ask their lawyer a straighforward question, and the lawyer pauses
and replies "Well... it depends..."
In our earlier post
(here) and
(here), we reviewed the Canadian decision
in Tucows.Com Co. v. Lojas Renner
S.A., 2011 ONCA 548, which stands for the
proposition that a domain name is intangible personal
property. The court pointed to an emerging consensus among other
courts that domain names are a form of property. This decision was
denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in Lojas Renner S.A.
v. Tucows.Com Co., 2012 CanLII 28261 (SCC) which seems to
settle the matter.
In the United States, courts have also come to the same
conclusion that a domain name is personal property, for
example in (Bosh v. Zavala (C.D. Cal. Sept. 24, 2009) and
Kremen v. Cohen, 325 F. 3d 1035 (US Ninth Circuit
Court of Appeals).
