Michael Urvan

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Michael Urvan (b. 1973), was the first individual ^[1] to successfully defend against a cybersquatting domain name dispute brought against by a famous celebrity.

Attorneys for Gordon Sumner, who uses the stage name "Sting", filed a complaint against Urvan on July 13, 2000 for the domain name Sting.com via the ICANN Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy and the case was sent before World Intellectual Property Organization for arbitration. On July 11, 2000, Dr. Andrew F. Christie was appointed to be the Sole Panelist by WIPO for the case. On July 19, 2000 after reviewing the complaint submitted by attorneys on the behalf of Sumner, and after reviewing the response provided by Urvan, the case was decided in favor of Urvan. The panel's decision was made based on several factors: that the primary word ('sting') to make up the domain name was a common dictionary word, and that Urvan did not use the domain name in bad faith.^[2] "Urvan's lawyers argued that sting is a common English word, Sumner had not registered it as a trademark and Urvan was legitimately using it, not holding it to ransom. The WIPO panel agreed. " ^[3]

The case drew international attention for being the first major defeat of a celebrity in a domain name dispute.