 Cosby created Fat Albert in the 1960s |
Comedian Bill Cosby has wrested control of an internet domain named after Fat Albert, the comic strip character he created in the 1960s. A United Nations panel ruled he should have control of www.fatalbert.org, which had been directing people to a search engine for adult products.
Cosby successfully argued his trademark was being infringed in bad faith.
Fat Albert started out in Cosby's stand-up comedy routine about his childhood in Philadelphia.
It then became a TV series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, in 1972 and a film starring the character was made in 2004.
The UN panel ruled that although the person that had registered the domain name had not responded they "had no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name".
Arbitrator John Kidd said the domain was "identical or confusingly similar" to Cosby's trademark.
"That on its own is sufficient in the panel's view to constitute bad faith registration and use," said Mr Kidd.
Cosby joins the growing list of celebrities who have fought for control of website addresses trading on their names, including Morgan Freeman, Pamela Anderson and Pierce Brosnan.
One-Minute World News 
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