Candy manufacturer wants domain name SwedishFish.com.
Cadbury Adams, maker of the tasty red Swedish Fish candy, has filed for arbitration with World Intellectual Property Organization to get the domain name SwedishFish.com. Cadbury Adams currently uses the not-so-memorable domain name AfriendYouCanEat.com for its Swedish Fish web site. It also owns OriginalSwedishFish.com.
The SwedishFish.com domain name’s whois record is currently protected by whois privacy, but a record from February shows the owner to be a man in Wisconsin. The domain was registered back in 2001, and the current owner has held it since at least 2002. The domain name is parked at eNom and shows ads offering Swedish Fish candy. It was parked at Sedo for part of 2008.
If Cadbury gets the domain name it may help it sell more Swedish Fish in the future. Just filing the case at WIPO has helped it sell another bag of candy; writing this article has made my salivate for the candy right now. Off to the grocery store.
fred says
This is an obvious generic. If used right it could give plentyoffish.coma run for their money.
Andrew Allemann says
Fred – I don’t know if it’s obvious. And the way it’s being used will kill the registrant.
Patrick McDermott says
Andrew,
They also own “OriginalSwedishFish.com”
which redirects to “AfriendYouCanEat.com”
The WhoIs record for OriginalSwedishFish.com
is weird and in violation of ICANN WhoIs policy,I believe.
“Registrant:
leave unchanged
DNS Manager
leave unchanged leave unchanged
leave unchanged, leave unchanged leave unchanged
US
Email: leave unchanged”
Mark says
Love those jellyish fishy candy things. But why Swedish Fish? They could call em Dutch Fish or Austin Fish and it wouldn’t matter to me.
Grab me a bag too.
Mark
Basil says
its a generic name like tuna fish, salmon fish and etc. I think the owner will get to keep the name
Andrew Allemann says
@ Basil – it *would* have been generic, had the owner not had ads for candy running on it. He’ll lose the domain.
Pokerhands says
It’s not a generic domain …. I can remember as child … decades ago my father coming home with a bag of “Swedish Fish” for us. Ad to that it was showing ads for the candy on the ppc page … while not the deciding factor in many cases I think it will be here. Swedish fish is not something that people would refer too for anything but that candy.
cybele says
I like that you’re writing about intellectual property law and using a photo you don’t have rights to.
Oh, wait. No, I don’t like that at all.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/typetive/2676497062/