Tag Archives: UDRP

Thu 14th October 2010
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
AOL Owns Patch.com, But Can’t Win wwwPatch.com UDRP - AOL’s lawyers didn’t provide enough evidence of common law rights. AOL owns the web site Patch.com, yet it has failed to obtain the typo wwwPatch.com through a National Arbitration Forum proceeding. How is this possible? It seems that AOL’s lawyers may have taken this case for granted and not supplied enough evidence. The panel found that wwwPatch.com is confusingly similar to AOL’s PATCH mark, and that the respondent doesn’t have any rights or legitimate ... read more ...
Fri 1st October 2010
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Miss Universe Goes After Sex Tape Domain Names - Miss Universe turns to arbitration to take down web sites. Miss Universe L.P. has filed complaints with World Intellectual Property Forum in an effort to gain control of two web site promoting sex videos. One complaint was filed against missuniversesexvideo.com (warning: explicit), a web site that indicates it has video from a sex tape scandal that broke last year. (Did I really just link to TMZ?) The other complaint was filed against missusasex.com, which seems ... read more ...
Tue 28th September 2010
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Group Wants to Become New UDRP Provider - Comment period open to review proposed arbitration provider. Arab Center for Domain Name Dispute Resolution (ACDR) has sent a proposal to ICANN to become a resolution provider under UDRP. Based in Jordan, ACDR is a joint venture between Arab Intellectual Property Mediation and Arbitration Society (AIPMAS) and the Arab Society for Intellectual Property (ASIP). ACDR plans to charge about the same as other UDRP providers for low volume cases. One or two domain names ... read more ...
Fri 24th September 2010
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Two New Cases Show What’s Wrong with UDRP - Two cases show why we need UDRP reform. National Arbitration Forum has handed down two recent domain name decisions that show what’s wrong with UDRP. This isn’t an attack on National Arbitration Forum, as its panelists got both of these cases right. In both cases they found that the registrant had rights or legitimate interests in the domain names and that they weren’t registered in bad faith. What’s wrong about these cases is that the respondents even had ... read more ...
Tue 21st September 2010
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Hey Ashford University, Go Back to Math Class - University loses claim for domain name registered five years prior to its existence. Bridgepoint Education’s Ashford University has lost a UDRP case for the domain name Ashford.net because it doesn’t understand how dates work. Bridgepoint bought Franciscan University of the Prairies in 2005 and renamed it Ashford University. It also got the corresponding Ashford.edu. In this UDRP case the University went after the owner of Ashford.net, but the domain name was ... read more ...
Thu 16th September 2010
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The Southern Company Goes After Power Domain Names - Company files four UDRPs. Are these generic domains or trademarks? The Southern Company has filed four UDRP cases to get domain names that include a state or region and power company in them: georgiapowercompany.com mississippipowercompany.com alabamapowercompany.com gulfpowercompany.com This will be an interesting set of cases to follow. On the surface these may look like generic domain names. But the Southern Company has subsidiaries named the same as each of ... read more ...
Wed 15th September 2010
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Hershey Gets Twizzled and Loses Twizzler.com Domain Challenge - Panel rules Twizzler.com owner can keep domain name. Hershey, the company that makes the addicting Twizzlers licorice candy, has lost an arbitration case for the domain name Twizzler.com. Raymond Mah registered the domain name in 1999 and said he had plans to create a puzzle game at the site. He pointed to the Oxford dictionary definition of Twizzle, which means “a twisting or spinning movement” as the idea for the name. At one point in 2001 he had a site at ... read more ...
Mon 13th September 2010
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Man Chastises Disney’s Club Penguin, Gets to Keep Domain Name - Calling Club Penguin’s membership base “minuscule”, domain owner convince arbitration panel to let him keep domain name. Calling Disney’s Club Penguin and its 2.6 million registered users in 2006 a “minuscule and insignificant number”, a Florida man has convinced an arbitrator to let him keep the domain name ClubPenguin.mobi. The domain name’s owner, Pedro Sierra, told a National Arbitration Panel that he registered the domain name to “market images ... read more ...
 
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Worst UDRP of 2010? Testosterone.com Awarded to Complainant - All I can say is “wow”. We have a new candidate for worst UDRP decision of 2010: Testosterone.com. National Arbitration Forum panelist Fernando Triana Esq. awarded the domain name to Monsterops, LLC, despite the respondent having registered the generic name three years prior to Monsterops’ using the trademark in commerce. The registrant of the domain name registered it way back in 1995, yet somehow Monsterops was able to snag this generic from him 16 years ... read more ...
Fri 10th September 2010
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National Car Rental Fails to Show Rights in National.com Typo - An interesting UDRP case for car rental chain. Vanguard Trademark Holding, which holds the trademarks for National Car Rental, has failed to win the domain name Natonal.com in a UDRP. This is despite: – Natonal.com resolving to a parked page full of ads for car rental – The domain owner not responding to the UDRP So why did Vanguard fail? It based its premise primarily on Natonal.com being confusingly similar to the company’s “National Car Rental” mark. ... read more ...
Wed 8th September 2010
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Arbitrator Refuses to Hand Over Generic .Org Domain to .Com Owner - Owning a generic .com doesn’t give you a monopoly on other top level domains. The owner of the descriptive and generic domain name IntlMovers.COM has failed to win the domain name IntlMovers.ORG from its owner in a UDRP case. Although IntlMovers.com existed before IntlMovers.org, and they offer similar services, panelist Tony Willoughby pointed out that owning a generic .com doesn’t give you an automatic monopoly on other top level domains: The Policy was designed ... read more ...
Tue 7th September 2010
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UDRP Panelists Still Can’t Agree on Decisions - Drug company loses dispute, but panelists disagree over key point. A recent UDRP brought by drug giant Sanofi-aventis is interesting on a couple counts. First, the company lost the case over the domain name ferrlecit.com. The respondent is a former licensee of Sanofi-aventis. It registered the domain name while it was a licensee. So it was registered in good faith. But when the drug company and licensee terminated their relationship through arbitration, there ... read more ...
Mon 6th September 2010
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George Soros’ Open Society Institute Loses Domain Dispute - Foundation backed by George Soros loses arbitration for domain name. Open Society Institute, a think tank and foundation founded by billionaire George Soros, has lost a domain name dispute over the domain OpenSociety.org. The majority of the three person National Arbitration Forum found that the domain name wasn’t registered and used in bad faith. Two of the panelists found that the domain was confusingly similar to the Open Society Institute mark and that the ... read more ...
Thu 2nd September 2010
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Juniper Networks Loses Case for Juniper.tv - $15B company loses UDRP case. Juniper Networks has lost a domain name arbitration case to get the domain juniper.tv. Despite having a market cap of nearly $15 billion, the arbitrator noted that it’s entirely plausible that the registrant of the domain name hadn’t heard of the company because it’s a business-to-business company. Also working against Juniper Networks is that juniper is a generic term. The registrant had registered other seemingly generic .tv ... read more ...
Wed 1st September 2010
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DreamHost.co and AOLmail.co Among First .Co Domains Hit with UDRP - Trademark owners go after their names on .co. A dozen companies have filed 13 .co domain name arbitration disputes since the relaunch of .co as a a generic domain name. The most recent UDRP filing was for Dreamhost.co by the owner of the large web host DreamHost.com. This is a somewhat surprising case given that surely a web host was aware of the release of .co domains. Other companies have also filed cases. AOL wants aolmail.co and L.A. Fitness is going after lafitness.co. ... read more ...
Tue 31st August 2010
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MyHealth.com Saved during National Arbitration Forum - Case over generic domain name denied. A National Arbitration Forum panelist has rejected a company’s claim to the domain name MyHealth.com. My Health, Inc registered its mark for “My Health” in 2009. But the registrant of the domain name acquired it prior to that (in 2007) for $150,000. Making matters worse, when My Health, Inc filed its complaint it thought that the respondent had owned the domain name since way back in 1995. Regardless of which date you ... read more ...
Wed 25th August 2010
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VirtualExpo.com Virtually Reverse Hijacked - French company guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for VirtualExpo.com. A French company has been found to have attempted reverse domain name hijacking of the domain VirtualExpo.com. M. Corentin Benoit Thiercelin, who claims to run a company called VirtualExpo, filed the complaint with WIPO to get the domain name. The domain was registered in 1996, well before the complainant filed trademarks on the name. The earliest of the trademarks was registered in 2005. The ... read more ...
Fri 20th August 2010
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No Grand Theft Domain: Take-Two Interactive Loses Battle over BioShock.com - Video game publisher loses arbitration for BioShock.com domain name. Take-Two Interactive Software, publishers of the Grand Theft Auto series and BioShock, have lost a domain name arbitration case to get the domain name BioShock.com. Take-Two filed for a trademark on BioShock back in 2005 on an intent-to-use basis, and first used the mark in commerce in 2007 according to USPTO filings. But the company claimed there was online chatter about the release of a new game ... read more ...
Sun 8th August 2010
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Peace and Love, But No Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Company fails to get generic PeaceandLove.com domain name. GS Enterprises LLC has failed in an attempt to get the generic domain name PeaceAndLove.com through UDRP. But the panelist’s line of thinking, and failure to consider reverse domain name hijacking, is troubling. Thierry Ehrmann registered the domain name all the way back in 1997, and GS Enterprises’ trademark for “Peace Love” wasn’t registered by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office until 2007. ... read more ...
Thu 29th July 2010
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Domain Hack DealsPl.us Loses Case for DealsPlus.com - Company tries to get “proper” version of its domain through UDRP but fails. I’ve argued many, many times that you shouldn’t create a web site at a “domain hack”, where the top level domain name is part of the keywords. Here’s just another example, courtesy of a decision at World Intellectual Property Organization. Sazze, Inc, which operates DealsPl.us, has lost a case brought against the owner of DealsPlus.com. DealsPl.us is a big web site, getting ... read more ...
Wed 28th July 2010
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WIPO Panelist Calls Juice Bar’s Assertions “Mystifying” - Juice bar wants .com, but will have to pay for it. A WIPO UDRP panelist has ruled against a juice bar called “Juicy Details”, calling the complainant’s assertions about bad faith registration of JuicyDetails.com “Mystifying”. Juicy Details, based in the Netherlands, filed the complaint against Another.com, which owns JuicyDetails.com. But the panelist thought Juicy Detail’s accusations didn’t add up: The Panel finds these assertions mystifying. From ... read more ...
Thu 22nd July 2010
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GrubHub Gets It All Backwards in Domain Dispute - A battle for foodies. Online food delivery portal GrubHub.com has lost a domain name dispute against the owner of HubGrub.com, with a National Arbitration Forum panelist finding against GrubHub.com on all counts. It’s an interesting case for a few reasons. First, it points out there might be confusion of word order when you use a two word domain name. This is something for entrepreneurs to think about; they might want to get both versions of their domain name. Second, ... read more ...
Tue 13th July 2010
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Owner of Casino.com Busts on Caisinos.com - A generic, a typo, or neither. The owner of Casino.com has failed to convince a World Intellectual Property Forum panel that it should get the domain name Caisinos.com. The case was filed by Mansion (Gibraltar) Limited of Gibraltar, which claimed that Caisinos.com is merely a typo of its Casino.com domain name. There are a few problems with this argument: 1. Casino is a generic term, although this is the weakest defense 2. If anything, it’s a typo of Casinos.com, ... read more ...
 
Written by DomainNameWire in EN and tagged
Tea Party Patriots Fighting and Failing Over Domain Names - Political group trying to retroactively create and protect brand. One of the many “Tea Party” political groups, Tea Party Patriots, is running into some problems doing retroactive brand management. Tea Party Patriots, Inc. has filed three UDRP domain dispute cases, and only won one of them. The first case was for six domain names including teapartypatriotspac.org. Tea Party Patriots won the case, despite some good arguments from the respondent. The second case ... read more ...
Fri 9th July 2010
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UDRP Watch: Buzz Aldrin, Manny Ramirez, and Brazilian Finance Follies - Celebrities, parking woes, big companies, and more. Here are a few recent UDRP filings and decisions of note. BuzzAldrin.net – Former astronaut Buzz Aldrin has picked up the domain name BuzzAldrin.net. He already owns BuzzAldrin.com, which he uses to promote his media products and iPhone and iPad apps. MyBT.com – This UDRP was just filed by British Telecom. I think the parked page is really going to hurt the respondent. First link: “BT Mobile Phones”. ... read more ...