Dennis Toeppen
{{short description|American businessman}}
{{Infobox person
| honorific_prefix =
| name = Dennis Toeppen
| honorific_suffix =
| native_name =
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| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1964}}
| birth_place = Mount Prospect, Illinois
| education = AS, BS, BS, MS, MBA
| alma_mater = University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Northwestern University
University of Chicago
| years_active = 1983–2019
| known_for = Web domain litigation, bus transportation
| website = {{URL|toeppen.com}}
| footnotes =
}}
Dennis Toeppen (born 1964) is an American entrepreneur and owner of bus company Suburban Express. He was a party to two cases of first impression relating to domain name registration.
Early life and education
Dennis Eric Toeppen grew up in Mount Prospect, Illinois. He graduated from Prospect High School in 1982 and enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, majoring in electrical engineering. He later changed his major to business, and graduated with a BS in Finance in 1987. Thereafter, he attended the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he earned a BS in Economics, Northwestern University, where he earned an MS in Transportation, and University of Chicago, where he earned an MBA, and Parkland College, where he earned an AS in Construction Management.{{cite web |url=http://www.toeppen.com |title=Dennis Toeppen's website|access-date=June 20, 2013}}
Bus transportation
In 1983, Toeppen founded Suburban Express to provide transportation from University of Illinois to Chicago Suburbs. Toeppen attacked monopolist Greyhound Lines using a novel approach not subject to regulation as a public utility. By 1985, Toeppen had captured approximately 50% of Greyhound's ridership.{{cite news | work=Daily Herald (Arlington Heights) | title=Fare wars - Bus service run by student butts heads with Greyhound | first=Dan | last=Rozek | url=http://toeppen.com/daily-herald-fare-wars-toeppen.pdf |date=1985-10-20|access-date=2016-02-22}}
Toeppen also started Allerton Charter Coach, Inc., a charter bus company with three buses and four vans as of 2014. It operated as a subcontractor for Suburban Express.{{cite web |url=http://www.allertoncharter.com/buses.html |title= Buses |publisher= Allerton Charter website|access-date=2014-01-28}}
Suburban Express and Allerton Charter Coach stopped operating in May 2019. Said Toeppen, "I stopped enjoying this business around 2001, and I think it's beginning to show."{{Cite web|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-suburban-express-bus-company-closes-20190508-story.html|title=Suburban Express shuts down|website=www.chicagotribune.com|language=en|access-date=2019-05-09}}
Domain registration & trademark litigation
In 1995, Toeppen registered about 200 internet domain names including some which were similar to well known companies and popular trademarks. Some of them included panavision.com (Panavision), deltaairlines.com (Delta Air Lines), neiman-marcus.com (Neiman Marcus), eddiebauer.com (Eddie Bauer) and yankeestadium.com (New York Yankees).{{cite book | title=The Internet Encyclopedia: P - Z | author=Bidgoli, Hossein | pages=455}} Some of these companies, like Delta Air Lines,{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/1998/09/21/business/compressed-data-what-s-in-a-web-name-sometimes-mistaken-identity.html | title=Compressed Data; What's in a Web Name? Sometimes, Mistaken Identity | work=New York Times | date=September 21, 1998 | access-date=2013-06-28 | first=Peter | last=Wayner}} paid Toeppen to acquire the domain names from him.{{cite news | url=http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/technology/make-sure-you-have-control-of-your-domain-or-prepare-to-pay-the-price-1.1409784 | title=Make sure you have control of your domain – or prepare to pay the price | date=2013-05-30 | access-date=2013-06-28 | author=Newenham, Pamela | newspaper=The Irish Times}}
In 1996, Panavision, a camera manufacturing company, sued Toeppen for trademark infringement instead of paying him $13,000 for the domain. In 1998, the court ruled that Toeppen had to relinquish the domain name to Panavision.{{cite book | title=Cyberethics: Morality and Law in Cyberspace | author=Spinello, Richard}}{{cite book |last=Graham |first=Lawrence |title=Legal Battles That Shaped the Computer Industry |year=1999 |publisher=Praeger |isbn=1567201784 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/legalbattlesthat0000grah/page/135 135–138] |url=https://archive.org/details/legalbattlesthat0000grah/page/135 }}Panavision Int'l, L.P. v. Toeppen, 945 F. Supp. 1296 (C.D. Cal. 1996), aff'd, 141 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 1998). In a similar case brought in 1996, Intermatic Inc., a timer manufacturing company, sued Toeppen rather than pay him $5,000 for the domain name intermatic.com.{{cite news |title=The Internet's Gatekeeper May Cash In on Its Role |first=Lewis |last=Peter |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/12/business/the-internet-s-gatekeeper-may-cash-in-on-its-role.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=1996-09-12 |access-date=20 June 2013}} The court ruled that the domain be transferred to Intermatic but ruled Intermatic had not proven willful trademark infringement or unfair competition.{{cite journal|title=Intermatic Inc. v. Toeppen, 947 F. Supp. 1227 (N.D. Ill. 1996)|url=https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.ilnd.58935|access-date=15 June 2016}}
Both the Panavision and Intermatic cases were matters of first impression for the U.S. Courts in dealing with trademarks and domain registrations.{{cite journal|title=Intermatic Inc. v. Toeppen, 947 F. Supp. 1227 (N.D. Ill. 1996)|url=https://archive.org/details/gov.uscourts.ilnd.58935|date=23 March 2001|access-date=15 June 2016|quote="As in Panavision International LP v Toeppen...The particular issues in this case were primarily issues of first impression and at the relevant period there was a lack of legal precedent regarding issues arising from the intersection of trademark law and the Internet."}} The practice of registering trademarked words as domains for sale to trademark holders became known as "cybersquatting", a term that was first used by a court in 1998.{{cite web|title=Avery Dennison v Sumpton|url=https://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/domain/AveryD.html|website=Intellectual Property in Cyberspace: Domain Names & Trademarks|publisher=Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University|access-date=15 June 2016}}{{cite web|last1=Isenberg|first1=Doug|title=The Origins of 'Cybersquatting'|url=http://www.gigalaw.com/2015/11/18/the-origins-of-cybersquatting/|access-date=15 June 2016}} In November 1999, after the Panavision case had ended, and while Intermatic Inc. v. Toeppen was still pending, the United States gave trademark holders a cause of action against registrants of domain names containing trademarks, in the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act.
By 2023, Toeppen's domain sales from the initial domain registrations totaled more than USD 2 Million. {{cite web |url=http://www.toeppen.com/domains.html |title=Dennis Toeppen's website|access-date=June 7, 2023}}
References
External links
- [http://toeppen.com/ Official website]