On 1 October 2008 the Vilnius District Court, namely the judge Marijonas Greicius, adopted a decision in the civil case No. 2-1061-623/08 between the claimant Pieno zvaigzdes AB and the respondent Edvardas Kostkevicius.

      On 25 July 2007 E. Kostkevicius registered internationalised .lt country code top level domain name (ccTLD) pienozvaigzdes.lt and contacted the claimant, one of the biggest milk-processing companies in the Baltic States offering to acquire this domain name. When E. Kostkevicius did not respond to the requirements of Pieno zvaigzdes AB to immediately cease any use of the domain name pienozvaigzdes.lt and transfer it to Pieno zvaigzdes AB, the latter referred to Vilnius District Court with a claim for violation of its trade mark rights and the company name.

      The court found that the respondent was seeking unfair profi t, did not have any legitimate interest in the domain name pienozvaigzdes.lt, violated trade mark rights of the claimant and rights to its company name.

      Most importantly, the court admitted that current Lithuanian national legislation is not suffi cient to determine the relation between domain names and trade marks, company names and acts of unfair competition. Consequently, the court applied analogy from the international legal acts and case law, namely the court referred to Regulation (EC) No 874/2004 of 28 April 2004 laying down public policy rules concerning the implementation and functions of the .eu TLD and principles governing registration.

      Hopefully, this will lead to the more consistent court practise in resolution of .lt domain name disputes, while the initiatives to create alternative dispute resolution mechanism for .lt domain name disputes is still in the working stage.