Swiss authorities turn to UN to win rights to name in cyberspace

AFP, February, 2006

GENEVA (AFP) — Swiss authorities announced that they had filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organisation, in an attempt to win the rights to the country's name in cyberspace.

The Federal Chancellery said it was seeking control of the Internet domain names schweiz.ch, suisse.ch and svizzera.ch -- "Switzerland" in the Alpine country's majority German, and minority French and Italian respectively.

Since 1999, the United Nations' intellectual property body has been empowered to settle disputes over ownership of Internet names.

Registered in 1995, the three Swiss names all direct surfers to a website run by Zurich engineer Stefan Frei which sells accessories marked with the country's red and white flag, plus patriotic images for mobile...