Athene Annuity and Life Company v. Athene Group Limited

CourtDistrict Court, D. Arizona
DecidedAugust 22, 2025
Docket2:24-cv-01120
StatusUnknown

This text of Athene Annuity and Life Company v. Athene Group Limited (Athene Annuity and Life Company v. Athene Group Limited) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Arizona primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Athene Annuity and Life Company v. Athene Group Limited, (D. Ariz. 2025).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 5 6 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 7 FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

9 Athene Annuity and Life Company, et al., No. CV-24-01120-PHX-JZB

10 Plaintiffs, ORDER

11 v.

12 Athene Group Limited, et al.,

13 Defendants. 14 15 This matter was assigned to Magistrate Judge John Z. Boyle. (Doc. 2). On July 18, 16 2025, the Magistrate Judge filed a Report and Recommendation with this Court.1 (Doc. 17 35). The Magistrate Judge has recommended that Plaintiffs’ Motion for Default 18 Judgment, (Doc. 32), be granted in-part. To date, no objections have been filed. 19 1 This case is assigned to a Magistrate Judge. However, not all parties have 20 consented to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Judge. Thus, the matter is before this Court pursuant to General Order 21-25, which states in relevant part: 21 When a United States Magistrate Judge to whom a civil action has been 22 assigned pursuant to Local Rule 3.7(a)(1) considers dismissal to be appropriate but lacks the jurisdiction to do so under 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(1) 23 due to incomplete status of election by the parties to consent or not consent to the full authority of the Magistrate Judge, 24 IT IS ORDERED that the Magistrate Judge will prepare a Report and 25 Recommendation for the Chief United States District Judge or designee.

26 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED designating the following District Court Judges to review and, if deemed suitable, to sign the order of dismissal on 27 my behalf:

28 Phoenix/Prescott: Senior United States District Judge Stephen M. McNamee 1 STANDARD OF REVIEW 2 The Court “may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or 3 recommendations made by the magistrate.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C); see Baxter v. 4 Sullivan, 923 F.2d 1391, 1394 (9th Cir. 1991). Parties generally have fourteen days from 5 the service of a copy of the Magistrate’s recommendation within which to file specific 6 written objections to the Court. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1); Fed. R. Civ. P. 6, 72. Failure to 7 object to a Magistrate Judge’s recommendation relieves the Court of conducting de novo 8 review of the Magistrate Judge’s factual findings and waives all objections to those 9 findings on appeal. See Turner v. Duncan, 158 F.3d 449, 455 (9th Cir. 1998). A failure to 10 object to a Magistrate Judge’s conclusion “is a factor to be weighed in considering the 11 propriety of finding waiver of an issue on appeal.” Id. 12 DISCUSSION 13 Having reviewed the Report and Recommendation of the Magistrate Judge, (Doc. 14 35), and no Objections having been made by any party thereto, the Court hereby 15 incorporates and adopts the Magistrate Judge’s Report and Recommendation as to 16 Plaintiffs’ claims for trademark infringement and unfair competition. However, the Court 17 declines to adopt the Report and Recommendation’s findings as to Plaintiffs’ 18 cybersquatting claim with the exception of one domain name—Athene.Network— 19 because the Court finds that the remaining 159 URLs identified by Plaintiffs and named 20 in this action as Doe Defendants are not actionable “domain names” within the meaning 21 of the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”). 22 The Magistrate Judge found that Plaintiffs stated a claim for cybersquatting under 23 the ACPA against all Doe Defendants operating under a URL containing Plaintiffs’ 24 “Athene” mark—95 Doe Defendants in all—and has recommended that the Court award 25 Plaintiffs $2,030,000 in statutory damages against Defendant Athene Group Ltd. and Doe 26 Defendants 1–160, consisting of $100,000 for each of Defendant Athene Group Ltd.’s 27 “12 primary domains” and $10,000 for the remaining “83 sites and social media accounts 28 containing the Athene mark or something confusingly similar.” (Doc. 35 at 16). In 1 reaching this damages calculation, the Magistrate Judge trimmed the $2,680,000 in 2 statutory damages that Plaintiffs requested on the basis that 65 of the 148 URLs identified 3 by Plaintiffs did not contain the Athene mark or something confusingly similar. 4 Having not had the benefit of full briefing on the Motion due to Defendants’ 5 default, the Magistrate Judge did not thoroughly evaluate whether the 160 URLs 6 identified by Plaintiffs in the First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) qualify as “domain 7 names” within the meaning of the ACPA. Upon a review of Plaintiffs’ FAC and Motion 8 for Default Judgment, the Court concludes that only one of the 160 identified URLs is a 9 domain name and thus actionable under the ACPA. 10 To understand why, it is helpful to begin with the definition of “domain name” 11 given in the ACPA: “The term ‘domain name’ means any alphanumeric designation 12 which is registered with or assigned by any domain name registrar, domain name 13 registry, or other domain name registration authority as part of an electronic address on 14 the Internet.” 15 U.S.C. § 1127; see also Jones v. Hollywood Unlocked, Inc., 2:21-cv- 15 07929-MEMF(PVCx), 2022 WL 18674459, at *25 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 22, 2022) (“To 16 qualify as a domain name, the domain name must be registered with a registry 17 operator.”). Importantly, domain names are not necessarily equivalent to URLs (Uniform 18 Resource Locators), also known as web addresses. As one district court that has 19 considered the issue has explained: 20 Each web page within a website has its own URL, for example 21 “a2zsolutions.com/desks/floor/laptraveler/dkfl-lt.htm.” Interactive Prod. 22 Corp. v. a2z Mobile Office Sols., Inc., 326 F.3d 687, 691 (6th Cir. 2003). A 23 URL consists of a domain name (a2zsolutions.com) and a “post-domain 24 path” (/desks/floor/laptraveler/dkfl-lt.htm). Id. As one court put it, the post- 25 domain path is “the text that comes after the slash.” Patmont Motor Werks, 26 Inc. v. Gateway Marine, Inc., No. 3:96-cv-02703-TEH, 1997 WL 811770, 27 at *4 n.6 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 18, 1997) (“goped” in 28 “www.idiosync.com/goped”). 1 United Fed’n of Churches, LLC v. Johnson, 522 F.Supp.3d 842, 851 (W.D. Wash. 2021), 2 aff’d in part, vacated in part on other grounds, No. 23-35060, 2023 WL 8271978 (9th Cir. 3 Nov. 30, 2023); see also Office Depot Inc. v. Zuccarini, 596 F.3d 696, 698–99 (9th Cir. 4 2010) (discussing the structure of the domain name system). 5 As is relevant here, some social media sites allow the user to create a personalized 6 URL, known as a “vanity URL,” where such vanity URL is contained in or comprises the 7 post-domain path. See Johnson, 522 F. Supp. 3d at 851 (“some social media websites, 8 such as Facebook, permit a user to create a unique, personalized URL known as a “vanity 9 URL.”). Take, for instance, one of the URLs named as a Doe Defendant in this action: 10 https://facebook.com/Athene.Network/. Within this URL, “Athene.Network” is the vanity 11 URL, or post-domain path. The domain name, distinct from the post-domain path, 12 remains facebook.com. See also Jones, 2022 WL 18674459, at *25 (“The handle specific 13 portion of a Twitter website does not designate a domain name in and of itself. Instead, it 14 qualifies as a “post-domain path” and thus [is] distinct from the domain name itself.”).

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