NU grad student wins round in fight to keep Olympic site
Chicago-based Web site entrepreneur Stephen Frayne, 29, won round one Thursday in his battle to retain ownership of the Internet domain name Chicago2016.com.
Chicago's official Olympic site, Chicago2016.org, along with the United States Olympic Committee and Domain Trade, Inc., are crying trademark infringement and what's known as "cybersquatting" in attempting to gain control of the moniker, which has the popular .com suffix.
But the World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration panel granted a motion by Frayne's attorneys to suspend and terminate proceedings.
The case now moves to federal court in the Northern District of Illinois and, for now, Frayne maintains control and ownership of the site.
Frayne, a Northwestern University MBA student, registered Chicago2016.com in 2004, along with Tokyo2016.com and several other domain names.
According to his lawsuit, Frayne launched the site as a forum for discussing the pros and cons of bringing the Olympic Games to Chicago.
"It's a victory in the sense that we felt the matter should be pursued in the federal courts," said one of Frayne's lawyers, Tim Schaum, of Daspin & Aument, LLP. "And that's what's going to happen."
Frayne acknowledged that a ruling could take months or years.