GoDaddy fails to recuse judge over bias in Academy Awards cybersquatting ruling

GoDaddy.com Inc, a leading domain-name registrar, lost its motion to disqualify a court judge, and claimed that the judge could give out a bias ruling on the cybersquatting case filed against the former by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

According to the National Law Journal, GoDaddy.com's legal representative Wrenn Bender claimed in a motion filed on December 31 that the Academy manipulated the system into letting the case to be litigated by US District Judge Audrey Collins instead of US District Judge Dale Fischer in Los Angeles, of whom the case was originally assigned to.

The Academy sued the domain registrar in 2010 over claims that the latter offered a program wherein its customers could park any Web page for the primary pyrpose of generating ad revenue from pay-per-clicks onto the sites, said the National Law Journal. It is to note that the act of trafficking in domain names to gain profits violates the current Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act of the US. The legal news site said the case is expected to go on trial later this year.

In a hearing on Monday, Fischer refuted GoDaddy's motion and said she will be issuing a decision soon. According to a minute order of the hearing, Fischer stated, "The Court finds that the motion is untimely, frivolous, and that defense has provided no evidence that a reasonable person could conclude that there is any bias by Judge Collins."

The Academy's longtime trademark attorney, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan attorney David Quinto added, "Her ruling began by characterizing the motion as both untimely and frivolous and concluded by noting that GoDaddy had blatantly misrepresented the facts."

GoDaddy's latest motion claimed that the Academy have favored Collins, whose daughter, Rachel Montez Collins, is an actress, the Hollywood Reporter said in a separate report.

In court papers, GoDaddy said, "The reassignment of this case to Judge Collins continued a long and consistent pattern of ensuring that all trademark lawsuits filed by AMPAS since 1999 were reassigned to her -- twenty-five (25) such cases in the past fifteen (15) years. This is not the result of mere coincidence."

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GoDaddy.com Inc, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Rachel Montez Collins

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