Syracuse University has filed suit in U.S. District Court against the owner of Cuse.com. The legal action is intended to stop the owner from selling the domain and using words and images trademarked by the university.

The one-page site displayed an offer to sell the domain under an image of two oranges with arms and legs, one sunbathing and one jumping rope. The university’s suit claims that selling the domain, which is almost identical to its ‘Cuse trademark, violates a federal anti-cybersquatting law.

The suit also alleges the site has infringed upon the university’s trademarks, the word ‘Cuse and the image of Otto the Orange, in a way that could confuse visitors into thinking the site is associated with SU.

The judge issued a temporary restraining order last Monday to prevent the owner, Edward Adler of Burlington, Vt., from selling the domain until the court reaches a decision. The original site was replaced on Saturday with a blank, white page.

The judge scheduled arguments for Sept. 24, when Adler will face an injunction preventing him from operating Cuse.com or using the university trademarks. Neither Adler nor the attorney representing the university, Louis Orbach, returned calls for comments on the case.

This is the third trademark dispute this year between the university and a Web site, but the first to go to court. This case also introduces a new element: cybersquatting, the act of registering a famous domain name with intent to sell it at an inflated price.

The other cases have been resolved out of court since February, when the university’s law firm sent cease-and-desist letters to RateMySUClass.com and CuseWeb.com. At that time, the owners of both sites were skeptical of the validity of the case against them.

CuseWeb’s owner agreed to transfer the domain to the university, said Betsy English, the director of SU’s Trademark Licensing Office.

The owner of RateMySUClass.com, professor and alumnus Adam Peruta, said he plans to change the site’s name, logo and domain name to satisfy the university’s demands. But he said he is doing so because of pressure the university placed on him after his site won $10,000 in this year’s Business Plan Competition – the university wouldn’t pay, he said, until he made those concessions.

The university learned of Cuse.com’s existence on May 25, 2004, according to court documents. Robert Sinnema, an attorney with the university’s firm, e-mailed the owner of the site two days later to inquire about the sale of the domain, according to Sinnema’s declaration filed on Sept. 9.

Sinnema did not mention in his brief e-mail that he was affiliated with the university, and the site’s owner responded with a price just four hours after the initial e-mail, according to the documents.

‘$1,500 firm. If you’re interested, let me know,’ Adler wrote, according to the copy of the e-mail submitted to the court.

The court documents show that Adler registered the domain at DirectNIC.com, which charges $15 per year per domain.

The university’s lawyers sent Adler, who works under the trade name Union Street Media, a letter asking him to stop using the university’s trademarks on his site and to transfer ownership of the domain to SU, Sinnema said in his declaration. In response, Adler’s attorney said Adler would not transfer the name and would demand a higher price than the first offer, the declaration said.

Cuse.com was an active site, part of the CollegeXTRA network, as early as Nov. 28, 2001, according to files in the Internet Archive, a site that has periodically stored pages from around the Web since 1996. The domain was first registered in 1999.

Union Street Media runs CollegeXTRA, a network of sites individually aimed at the students of nine New England universities, including Dartmouth (DartMoose.com) and Vermont (GroovyUV.com). The sites are in varying states of disrepair; only four of the domains lead to active Web sites.

The archive shows that Cuse.com shared the format of the current CollegeXTRA sites for about a year, during which time the site used the same image that the university now claims violates trademarks on ‘Cuse and Otto the Orange. By Aug. 2, 2002, the site had changed to display only the image and an announcement that Cuse.com will be down for the upcoming school year.’

It has not gone back up. That message changed a month later to the one on the site until Saturday: ‘Hey Syracuse: This Domain Is For Sale!’

English says the number of potential trademark infringements her department handles is ‘minute,’ but with three online disputes already this year, the Internet could quickly become the next front in the legal war to protect the university’s trademarks.

‘A lot of it is, perhaps, well intentioned or nave,’ English said of the online trademark issues. ‘There may be some misunderstanding or lack of knowledge about what you can do.’