Markenbusiness News reported (in German) that a Munich court ordered a lawyer to release the domain name fatum.de to a Mr or Ms Fatum.
bq. Nach einem Urteil des LG München (Az: 27 O 16317/04) steht das Recht an der Domain fatum.de dem klagenden Namensinhaber zu. Ein Rechtsanwalt hatte den Begriff im Jahr 2000 angemeldet, seitdem aus Zeitgründen aber keine Inhalte auf der Website hinterlegt. Jetzt muss er die Domain bei der deutschen Domainregistrierungsstelle DENIC freigeben.
The lawyer has never got round to putting up a horoscope site (Latin fatum, German Schicksal, English fate).
In the baroque period, if I remember right, a lot of German names were latinized. I once shared a flat with a Noltenius (originally Nolte). How Fatum became a surname is more mysterious.
The court held that the name could be generic, but in this case the owner of the name had priority.
This matter has also been reported by domainblog (in German), which got the information on a list from a lawyer called Noogie C. Kaufmann. Now there’s a good name! It reports the court as saying that one reason for not defining fatum.de as purely generic was that the German translation is only familiar to persons with a knowledge of Latin [or English? MM], but this ‘does not apply to the majority of the population’.
(Thanks to Lisa of Luxus Linguae)
I fear that, if efficient lawyer-looking Noogie C. Kaufmann wants to Disco-Boogie by moving rhythmically into the musical sphere, he is going – paradoxically – to have a domain-name problem. There is already a Noogie/ Otherwise/ Holiday in the Sun/ Lyrics website.