But then, after a year of legal wrangling, a long-awaited day in District Court at Alexandria, Va., on Sept. 11 was cut short because of the terrorist attack on the Pentagon in nearby Arlington.
Judge Claude Hilton did start the bench trail that morning, although by then planes had already struck the Pentagon and New Yorks World Trade Center. Lawyer Dale Robertson, representing the current holders of Barcelona.com, said the proceedings were adjourned after about a half an hour when authorities ordered that the federal building be evacuated.
Robertson, who had to wait until domestic flights resumed to return to his Brownsville, Texas, office, said both sides in the dispute must now supply the court with alternative dates on which they are available to resume the trial.
Meanwhile, Concepcio Riera and her husband Joan Nogueras Cobo say plans to expand the business they envision for the Barcelona.com domain they registered in 1996 remain on hold.
The couples problems began in August 2000 when an arbitrator refereeing in a dispute resolution process created by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) said that the pair was illegally holding the domain name and that Barcelona.com rightfully belonged to the city.
That decision remains one of the most controversial among thousands of rulings under the ICANNs Uniform Domain-Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which was designed as an alternative to lengthy -- and costly -- court battles between the owners of trademarks and the registrants of similar sounding-domain.
But UDRP rules also say that the ICANN will defer to opinions from recognized courts and that registrants on the losing ends of UDRP cases can delay a domain-name transfer by starting legal action within 10 days of a decision.
Barcelona.com and the Spanish city are squaring off in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia because lawyers for the city, in filing their UDRP complaint, identified that jurisdiction as the venue for any challenges.
Under the ICANNs rules, those filing complaints get to choose the "mutual jurisdiction" of future court challenges to UDRP decisions -- frequently, thats the Virginia home of the Internets largest domain name registrar, Network Solutions.
Steven Bonisteel, Newsbytes
