14 Year Old 4 Letter .Com Lost in UDRP To Trademark Filed in 2012: GECU.com - A one member UDRP panel has just handed over a 14 year old, four letter .com domain, GECU.com to GECU of Texas The domain holder registered the domain gecu.com on June 29, 2001. Terry F. Peppard the Panelist found the credit union had common law trademark rights going back to 1998 even though the trademark was not filed until 2012. Interestedly GECU.org is owned by another credit union, Gulf Credit Union which seems to go back to 1996 meaning they were in business, the same business as the Complainant, ... read more ...

Owner of WordPress Hit With UDRP On The Domain Name Thesis.com - The owner of WordPress.com, Automattic, Inc, has been hit with a UDRP on the domain name Thesis.com which they seemed to have acquired in September  2014. The domain name is registered through Mark Monitor. The domain was owned by Facultylounge.com Partners until it was purchased by The domain name Thesis.com is being forward to Themeshaper.com which is of course also owned by Automattic, Inc A quick search of the USPTO found 7 live trademarks for Thesis, including one filed in February of 2015 ... read more ...

Bolter.com Saved In UDRP Despite an Asking Price of Up To $99K - Impressons LLC of California lost its bid to grab the domain name Bolter.com in a UDRP The domain holder Stanley Pace was represented by Howard Neu. The three member panel of Fernando Triana, Esq, Debrett Lyons, Esq. and David Einhorn, Esq found that the Impression who just filed for a trademark last year did not establish common law rights in Bolter before the domain name was registered in 2013 and that “Bolter” was a generic term. Here are the highlights: “Respondent is in the business of ... read more ...

Wiz Khalifa Wins Control Of 8 Domain Names - Based on this United States trademark registration, Complainant has established rights in the TAYLOR GANG mark pursuant to Policy, paragraph 4(a)(i). See Janus International Holding Co. v. Scott Rademacher, WIPO Case No. D2002-0201 (finding that “registration of a mark is prima facie evidence of validity, which creates arebuttable presumption that the mark is inherently distinctive. Respondent has the burden of refuting this assumption”.)Complainant has a pending United States trademark applications ... read more ...

Owned For At Least 14 Years Nat Cohen's Telepathy, Inc Hit With UDRP on Boon.com - Domain Investor Nat Cohen’s company Telepathy, Inc, has been hit with a UDRP on the domain name Boon.com which according to DomainTools.com it has owned since at least 2001. The UDRP was filed by Wirecard AG, a “global financial services and technology company headquartered in Aschheim, Munich, Germany. Its internet payment service competes with PayPal and Western Union. Wirecard AG is listed on the Frankfurt Securities Exchange WDI and ranks among the 30 largest German technology companies below ... read more ...

NF.com Bought In 2014 Hit With UDRP By Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) -   The two letter domain name NF.com has been hit with a UDRP just a year after it was acquired from Anything.com. The domain name was owned by Anything.com back in June 2014 and since then has changed hands several times. 4.cn a Chinese based domain broker, owned the domain (possibly under escrow) until August went it was sold to VINCENT CHENG of CRAZY TOP ONE LTD of Auckland.  In January 2015 the domain was registered to another person in Hong Kong. The domain was then sold to 62.com in January ... read more ...

UDRP Panel Finds Reverse Domain Name Hijacking on Fair Criticism Site & Its Not a .Sucks - Loney John Hutchins (“Complainant”), of Tennessee, has just been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on his matching domain name LoneyHutchins.com The panel of Fernando Triana, Esq, found that the domain was being used as a fair criticism site of conduct of the person’s name in the .com address So the domain holder was able to express his first amendment rights to free speech without having to use a .sucks address Imagine that Here are the highlights Complainant is the owner ... read more ...

16 Yr Old SexyJapanese.com Saved In UDRP But No Reverse Domain Name Hijacking - Grigorius Holdings, SIA (“Complainant”), just lost it bid to grab the generic domain name sexyjapanese.com which was registered on January 2, 1998. The one member panel John J. Upchurch found that Complainant failed to establish rights in a trademark that predate the registration of the domain name. However Mr. Upchurch failed to even discuss Reverse Domain Name Hijacking despite finding the Complainant didn’t meet any of the three requirements of a UDRP and really had no claim to a right ... read more ...

Hugo Boss Loses UDRP Attempt To Grab Domain Hugo.mx - Hugo Boss just lost its bid to gain control of the domain name Hugo.mx The domain holder Jesus Navarro Saracibar, of Baltimore who seems to own some 10K domain name represented himself in the matter and seemed to do a very good job even citing other UDRP cases in support of his arguement. Bottom line the panel rightly found the term “Hugo” is generic Here are the highlights: Factual Background The Respondent is a German fashion house founded in 1924 by luxury Hugo Boss. The Respondent is listed ... read more ...

Sexodrome.xxx Saved in UDRP Despite Trademark: Panel Finds "Drome" is Generic - The Complainant Librairie des Artistes in Paris, France, just lost its bid to gain control over two adult domain names, sexodrome-europe.com and sexodrome.xxx. Disputed domain names and were registered on September 24, 2014. The Respondent is using the domain name to propose referencing links to other websites . The Respondent is using the domain name to run a sex shop online. First, the Applicant must establish that it has rights to trademarks or service that he holds. As the Applicant holds ... read more ...

Drug Maker Hoffmann-La Roche AG Wins 154 Domains in One UDRP - A WIPO UDRP panel has awarded drug maker F. Hoffmann-La Roche control of 154 domain names in a single UDRP The domain names were owned by dozens of registrants. The decision has not been published yet but you can see why the panel awarded the domain to the drug maker as all of thedomain contained names of drugs that are trademarked and manufactured and/or marketed by F. Hoffmann-La Roche. Earlier this year ebay.com won control of 1,152 domain names with a single UDRP. Here are the domains: ... read more ...

Giovanni Laporta CEO of Yoyo.Email Loser of 37 UDRP/URS's Rants About Domains, TM & More - Giovanni Laporta the CEO Yoyo.Email has made an extensive post on UDRPSearch.com, venting his thoughts about the UDRP/URS process the panelist, the process, domain names, trademarks and his motivation behind YoYo mail and his defense of what he says is around 50 UDRP/URS cases. According to UDRPSearch, YoYo has been the subject of 39 UDRP/URS cases and lost all but 2. These comments were made by Mr. Laporta in response to one of those lost decisions on Mysql.email and a comment made by a Mr. Levy ... read more ...

Broadcasting War As FashionTV.com Hit With UDRP By FashionTelevision.com - Fashion Television International Limited which owns the domain name FashionTelevision.com has filed a UDRP against FashionTV.com The domain name has been registered to Fashiontv.com GmbH since at least January 2007. It appears the parties have been in litigation or at least threatened litigation for many years according to a page on FashionTV.com According to Wikipedia.org, “FashionTV is an international fashion and lifestyle broadcasting television channel, founded in France in 1997 by its Polish-born ... read more ...

Just Transferred Last Week -             A UDRP has been filed on the domain name Kite.com The registrant of the domain is currently Escrow.com under the email address of dnholding@escrow.com. While I have no details about Kite.com I can tell you that Escrow.com uses that email address when its holding a domain name that has been sold typically while payments are still being made by the buyer to the seller, through escrow.com The domain was owned under privacy at Godaddy and transferred to Escrow.com on March 15th. In ... read more ...

Hip-Hop Artist Wiz Khalifa Files UDRP On TaylorGang.com, Registered in 2007; TM Filed 2014 - Hip-Hop artist and rapper Wiz Khalifa whose real name is Cameron Thomaz, filed a UDRP again the owner of the domain name TaylorGang.com with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The domain name was first registered in August 2007 according to DomainTools.com but according to Screenshots.com there was a site on the domain going back to 2005. However again according to Screenshots.com, going to the domain appears to have been going to a parked page from 2008 until 2014 and now is going ... read more ...

UDRP Panel Denies TractorSupply.com Bid To Get Rights To The Word "Traveller" - Tractor Supply Co. of Texas, which has a long history of UDRP wins on “Tractor Supply” domains just lost its attempt to grab the new gTLD domain traveller.tools The one member panel of Andrew D. S. Lothian didn’t buy the argument that the tractor supply company also owned the exclusive rights to the generic term TRAVELLER. I think it’s an important case because had the panel found that Tractor Supply owned the rights to the word “Traveller”, based on the company’s avid defense of its ... read more ...

Worst UDRP Decision Of The Year? Panel Gives Away Domain Registered Before TM Was Filed - A one member UDRP panel has awarded a domain name purchased in 2010,  TheLightBlubStore.com, to Lumen Inc. based off a trademark filed in 2011, after the owner wanted to “reselling it for an outrageous profit. Specifically, Respondent offered to sell the disputed domain name for $18,000.00.” Hon. Carolyn Marks Johnson was the Panelist who found the Complainant had a common law trademark right even though the Complainant did not make that argument or even a statement that they had a common law ... read more ...

UDRP Panel Awards The Domain Name AnnLanders.com To The Trademark Holder - The domain name AnnLanders.com was ordered transfer to the Margo Howard Primary Trust and Margo Howard from the domain owner Ann Landers Fans International, LTD For those not old enough to remember her, Ann Landers was person who wrote a syndicated newspaper column for 56 years The Complainant claims to own the ANN LANDERS trademark as assignee of the trademark registration with the USPTO (Reg. No. 831, 048, registered June 27, 1967). Respondent failed to submit a Response in this proceeding. Complainant ... read more ...

Two Letter Domain Lost In UDRP "Bought As Part Of A $1M Domain Portfolio Purchase in 2014" - In an interesting  UDRP decision today  the domain holder Futurename of Paris said they purchased a 1,000 domain name portfolio for  $1,000,000 in August  2014. Some of the domain names purchased according to Futurename have the following values:  colis.com USD 7,600, though.com, USD 59,000, monnaie.fr – EUR 10,000, bons.com – USD 12,000, milkshake.net – USD 4,000. The domain at issue in the UDRP is VW.qa The complainant Volkswagen said the price paid for the portfolio was “not credible” ... read more ...