The Case Of Moon Microsystems, Inc. V. John Zucchini?

For my Essay #3, The Juror’s Reflection, I have chosen to discuss the case of Moon Microsystems, Inc. v. John Zucchini. I have chosen this case as I found John Zucchini sounded very innocent during my first read through of the trial description, but on each successive read through I found he sounded more and more guilty. I believe that Zucchini would have had a hard time justifying any benefits of his chosen domain name outside of the gained popularity through Moon’s customer’s confusion. In this case, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff, Moon Microsystems, Inc. To find the defendant, John Zucchini, guilty of Cybersquatting under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The plaintiff must also prove that the defendant is liable …show more content…
The defendant’s domain name uses a mark that is confusingly similar to Moon Microsystem’s Mocha programming language. The domain name in question contains almost 100% of the trademark owned by Moon Microsystems, Inc. However, I do not think that Zucchini should be financially responsible for damages to the plaintiff as I do not think that the plaintiff suffered any damages because of this cybersquatting. Many customers of both parties may have been confused when locating the respective sites, moonmocha.com and mocha.moon.com, but Zucchini was not directly profiting from this confusion. Any profit gained from this confusion would be difficult to discern from Zucchini’s own success with his online blog as the two interests, programming and late-night coffee drinking, are not mutually exclusive. I’m surprised a plea deal was not discussed between the two parties involving a licensing or sponsorship contract as it seems these two companies may be targeting an overlapping …show more content…
I believe that the defendant would have chosen a domain name closer to his blog’s name if he did not have a bad faith intent. “Mixing Moonlight & Mocha” is a blog name that could have led to many different domain names, for example: moonlightandmocha.com, moonlightmocha.com, moonlight-and-mocha.com, mixmoonlightandmocha.com, or even moonmocha.blog which would have cleared any confusion between Zucchini’s blog and Moon’s programming language. I think that Zucchini had intentions of gaining popularity by using Moon Microsystem’s Mocha trademark because the two words “moon” and “mocha” are the entire trademark while only a small portion of Zucchini’s blog name. I do not think it makes sense for Zucchini to use a domain name that differs so greatly from the name of his coffee shop, LateNightGrinds. Even if his coffee shop was named Moonlight Mocha, I do not think moonmocha.com is a domain name that his customers would stumble upon. His customers and Moon Microsystem’s customers would be very confused when attempting to locate the correct site, and this would not be something a business owner would seek out unless he was hoping to gain popularity off another’s