7/2/2009

in

The former Tonight Show host wins a legal battle over the use of his name for a website

Seth Fiegerman

Now that he's temporarily sitting out the battle for late night domination, Jay Leno has turned his energy towards defending his name in cyber space.  
  
Leno recently won a "cybersquatting" case against a Texas man who created a website called thejaylenoshow.com, according to Reuters.  
  
Guadalupe Zambrano created the website in 2004 and used the domain name to attract visitors interested in Leno's show. Visitors were then automatically be redirected to Zambrano's real estate website, thereby giving the page a lot of extra traffic.  
  
According to Reuters, the World Intellectual Property Organization decided that Leno does have common law trademark rights to his own name after working for 30 years in the public eye. Zambrano has 10 days to transfer the domain name to Leno.  
  
Leno is not the first celebrity to fight a domain name case in court. Other big name people like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton have also tried.  
  
Leno, who previously hosted the Tonight Show for 17 years, will begin hosting a new talk show called The Jay Leno Show in September.