HealthNet Trying to Shut Sites With ‘Healthnet’ Name

Is the World Wide Web big enough for more than one “healthnet” site?

No, according to Foundation Health Systems, the Woodland Hills-based parent company of California HMO HealthNet. The company is trying to shut down several Web sites operated by a nonprofit public health organization because its Internet addresses contain the word “healthnet.”

HealthNet attorneys sent a letter to Watertown, Mass.-based SatelLife demanding that the group stop using the healthnet.org domain name because customers might confuse the SatelLife Web site with the HMO’s Web site at https://www.healthnet.com.

The nonprofit group offered to say on its site that it was not affiliated with the HMO, but lawyers for HealthNet--which has trademarked the name--asked domain name registrar Network Solutions to take healthnet.org away from SatelLife.

Bernard Lown, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning physician who founded SatelLife 10 years ago, said that with 10 staff members and an annual budget of $800,000, the group doesn’t have the financial or logistical resources to change its domain name. Besides, he said, the risk of confusion is small because SatelLife serves people who are mostly in countries in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.

A HealthNet spokesman said the company is trying to enforce its trademark and protect its intellectual property.

SatelLife filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts last week asking the court to rule that it can continue using healthnet.org to handle 38,000 pieces of e-mail each day.

Cyberlaw experts said the case could go either way.