> We may argue that domain names are different from phone numbers because they are recognisable. They carry trademarks, and unlike phone numbers, are often the

> We may argue that domain names are different from phone numbers because they are recognisable. They carry trademarks, and unlike phone numbers, are often the way we remember of an internet facing person or company. This isn't unlike how phone numbers used to be until 10-20 years ago (and still are for many people today, outside of tech circles). Off the top of my head, I can rattle off at least six different phone numbers for businesses which I've never used (and some of which don't even exist anymore), simply because they chose a phone number that spelled out something memorable and relevant, and then used that heavily in their promotional materials and advertising, the same way you would for a domain name or app name today. Heck Googling just one, I found a Youtube documentary that chronicles the 40-year history of jingles associated with one of those numbers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDv8zqpl8mI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDv8zqpl8mI > Also, the practical consequences of losing a phone number are much tamer than that of losing a domain name. That's absolutely not true. They actually translate one-to-one quite well. > While even if the latter is not property, the former could be treated as intellectual property "Intellectual property" is a catchall term that conflates three completely distinct concepts in law: copyright, patents, and trademarks. Phone numbers are obviously not patentable; the entire idea is nonsensical. And phone numbers are explicitly not subject to copyright protection, and there's case law about this exact scenario. You can copyright a particular publication of phone numbers (such as a phone book), but not the number itself, and even if you could, that doesn't mean you're actually the owner of the number (the one who holds the copyright). You could make the argument for trademark protection, and that's exactly what this case is about. Unfortunately, it's a bidirectional application of competing marks - the man who owns France.com was already being accused of infringing French trademark law in the first place by claiming France.com as a mark.