Film hero Cruise defeats cyber-pirate, offscreen

Tom Cruise today won an off-screen combat - against a cyber-pirate who was using his name for advertising.

The UN intellectual property agency WIPO said an internet dispute body it runs had ruled for Cruise - who in recent roles has battled Martian invaders and ancient Japanese warlords - in a cyber-squatting case.

The pirate, identified only as Network Operations Center/Alberta Hot Rods, was ordered to hand over the internet domain name tomcruise.com to the actor, WIPO said.

The judge in the case, conducted on-line, said the pirate outfit had been using the site to divert Cruise fans to another selling goods and services with no link to the actor.

The Hollywood hero was the latest in a series of celebrities who have won cases against the US-based Network Operations Centre for misuse of their names.

The others included Canadian singer Celine Dion, stage and screen actor-director Kevin Spacey, and popular fiction writers Michael Crichton and Jeffrey Archer.