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Apple on Tuesday won a legal battle against iTunes.co.uk domain owner, Benjamin Cohen, as the UK internet registry, Nominet, found that Cohen had made an "abusive registration" and ruled that the domain name should be transferred to Apple.

Apple issued proceedings against Cohen's CyberBritain in December through Nominet, claiming ownership of the domain should be transferred to Apple because it holds the iTunes trademark. Nominet's rules state that it can rule in the complainant's favour if "the respondent is using the domain name in a way which has confused people or businesses into believing that the domain name is registered to, operated or authorised by, or otherwise connected with the complainant."

"I must admit that we were not expecting this decision by Nominet's appointed expert," Cohen said. "Apple chose to launch the UK brand of 'iTunes' within the UK with the knowledge that we had owned the name for three years before their US launch and four years before their launch within the UK." [Via SpyMac]