Amterdam - The court in The Hague ruled on Wednesday that Microsoft is the legal owner of all domain names containing the word MSNLOCK.

Two weeks ago Microsoft filed a lawsuit against the Dutch company Unicaresoft. Unicaresoft recently developed a programme called MSNLOCK enabling parents to limit and control their children's usage of Microsoft's popular chat programme MSN.

Microsoft said it owned the rights on the brand MSN and demanded that Unicaresoft transfer the domain names it registered to Microsoft.

The court agreed with Microsoft, explaining Unicaresoft violated the copyright of the brand name MSN.

The court ordered Unicaresoft to transfer all domain names containing the word MSNLOCK to Microsoft within 14 days. If it fails to do so, Unicaresoft has to pay 2,500 euros
(3,886 dollars) per day.

Weeks before the special software was released, Unicaresoft had already changed the name of the programme from MSNLOCK into Benzoy.

The court also ordered Unicaresoft to pay all legal fees, a total of 18,135 euros (28,192 dollars). (dpa)