Right to Use English Language, eVisa.com vs. Visa

December 29th, 2003
By Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) appealed a court ruling stripping the name "visa" from the evisa.com website and domain.

In October 2002, credit card giant Visa convinced a Las Vegas federal court to prevent the small business JSL Corp. from using the term "evisa" and the domain "evisa.com" for its website offering travel, foreign language, and other multilingual applications and services. The court ruled that the website--run by Joe Orr from his apartment-- "diluted" Visa's trademark, even though the site uses the word "visa" in its ordinary dictionary definition, not in relation to credit card services.

"Apple Computer, no matter how famous it becomes, cannot restrict companies from using the word 'apple' to refer to the fruit," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "Yet the court held that the Visa credit card company can restrict the ability of Americans to use the word 'visa' when they offer travel-related information and services."

Tom Moore of Tomlinson Zisko LLP will join EFF in representing Orr in the case.

"The order simply doesn't address the fact that 'visa' is a common English word," said Orr, who has moved the website to a new address (3dtree.com). "My evisa.com site had 20,000-30,000 people visiting for free travel visa information, computer training, and foreign language learning. It has nothing to do with credit cards or financial services."

"Having lifted its name from the dictionary, Visa cannot now claim ownership of the word," added Cohn.

Evisa.com has been on the web since 1997. The name came from Orr's English conversational school in Japan called Eikaiwa Visa ("Eikaiwa" means "English conversation" in Japanese).

Evisa.com today won its appeal at the Ninth Circuit over whether its domain name diluted Visa's trademark for credit cards, keeping the word "visa" in the dictionary (and DNS servers) for now.

"Visa is a generic word used throughout the world to describe foreign travel and was used long before it became a brand name for credit cards," said EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz.

"The Court of Appeals wisely rejected Visa's attempt to monpolize use of the word 'visa' in a domain name without further proof of harm to Visa's business." EFF represented Evisa.com in its appeal along with Thomas Moore III of Tomlinson Zisko LLP.