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Kraft loses dispute over Oreo.nl

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In a rare victory for the little guy, a domain arbitrator has ruled that Kraft has no right to Oreo.nl, which the company recently filed a dispute over.

J.C. van Winkel registered Oreo.nl in 2000. He uses the name for his personal email, but never set up a site with it. With the recent introduction of Oreo cookies to the Netherlands, however, Kraft decided it wanted the name, claiming that van Winkel’s use violated its trademark.

Though Kraft certainly has rights to the Oreo name, the arbitrator ruled that the corporation could not prove that van Winkel had no rights to the domain, either. In other words, both parties had a legitimate interest in Oreo.nl, but van Winkel was the early bird who got the worm.

This case is interesting because, unlike others in the past, the arbitrator ruled that email constitutes valid use of a domain. Just because a domain doesn’t have a site associated with it doesn’t mean the owner has no rights to it.

Source | Domain Name Wire

Photo | Flickr

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