I\'ve been thinking about this one, and I have to say that I don\'t have a lot of sympathy for this guy.
In my opinion, Uzi Nissan has a legitimate legal claim to the Nissan.com domain name, but there\'s no rational reason why he would should want it. He runs a small computer business in N. Carolina, so his internet needs could be satisfied just as well by another domain like nissancomputers.com or something like that. In fact, I\'ll bet that many of his potential computer customers would not even think of entering nissan.com into their web browser to find him, because they would assume that it would take them to the automaker. Uzi Nissan\'s plan to use nissan.com to sell PCs in N. Carolina is utterly absurd.
He shouldn\'t have put banner ads on his site linking to other businesses in the automobile industry. By doing so, he clearly benefitted financially from the Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. trademark. He also should not have asked for "millions" when Nissan Motor contacted him to discuss selling the domain. That action revealed that his goal in registering nissan.com in 1994 was to cash in at the expense of a big corporation, not to simply run a small computer company. Nissan Motor Company WAS selling cars in the US under the Nissan name in 1994, so he knew what he was doing.
If Uzi Nissan\'s only goal was to sell computers, he should have settled this with Nissan Motor co a long time ago. He should have asked for something reasonable, like $50,000 or $75,000 to represent the lost business while his customers couldn\'t find his web presence (a liberal estimate, I\'m sure you\'ll agree). Then he should have asked Nissan Motor Co. to purchase an alternate domain for him, like nissancomputers.com from whoever owned it. Then he could have asked for something else to be thrown in, like a new Nissan Maxima with a 15 year warranty, and I\'m sure Nissan Motor Co would have gone for it.
Instead he got greedy, and now he\'s complaining because a big corporation is making life hard for him. I don\'t enjoy dealing with greedy small business owners who are always looking for a quick buck. This is probably the kind of guy who would try to sell you a ribbon cable for $5 that cost him $.50