Energy drink seller Red Bull wins rights to RedBull.mobi.
Red Bull, famous for giving you an energy boost, can now energize mobile phones with the domain name RedBull.mobi. The company won the domain name in a dispute at World Intellectual Property Association.
The respondent, Roy Atar of Israel, defended himself by saying he is commonly known by friends as “Shor Adom”, which translates into English as “Red Bull”. Atar did not park the domain name; it was not in use and contained no links to Red Bull competitors.
The panel found many faults in Atar’s response, not the least of which pointing out that being known as Shor Adom doesn’t mean he was known as “Red Bull”.
Atar made a couple “mistakes” that domain owners should be aware of. I put “mistakes” in quotes because I think a reasonable person may do what Atar did, but the arbitrator nonetheless viewed them as incriminating.
First, Atar didn’t bring up the “Shor Adom” defense in his response to Red Bull’s earlier cease & desist letter. It’s perfectly common to not bring up all of your points of defense in a written response to a cease & desist letter. However, he probably should have mentioned this major point.
Second, Atar offered to put a disclaimer on RedBull.mobi when he launches it as a web site unrelated to energy drinks. The panel took that as admission that web site visitors would likely be confused.
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