Volkswagen wins Net domain battle

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Bloomberg) - Volkswagen AG, the world's fourth-largest automaker, said it won a court's ruling to claim the vw.net World Wide Web domain name from an Internet service provider.

A federal court in Alexandria decided last week that Virtual Works infringed Volkswagen's protected trademark and violated federal cybersquatting laws when it tried to sell the Internet name to the Wolfburg, Germany-based automaker.

The carmaker -- which claimed Virtual Works was committing cyberpiracy and trying to extort it -- asked the court to assign the Web address to Volkswagen.

''Our intention throughout this matter has been to protect the value of a trademark that we've spent more than half a century building,'' said Volkswagen attorney Debra Kingsbury. ''We are pleased that the court recognized the need to protect our valuable trademark in cyberspace.''

Virtual Works had sued Volkswagen to block the automaker's attempt to force a reassignment of the domain name. Volkswagen had asked the court to bar Virtual Works from selling the domain name to the highest bidder or otherwise using the www.vw.net site.