Lufthansa wins star-alliance.net domain

German airline Lufthansa has won a dispute over the domain star-alliance.net. The firm claims the name infringed on the trademark of Star Alliance, an alliance of airlines of which Lufthansa is a member.

The case was heard by a WIPO arbitration panel. The initial registrant of the name, Lord Oxford from “Top Banana Piggabeen,” seems a bit eccentric to say the least. In addition to demanding $50,000 from Lufthansa, he declared:

MY domain www.Star-Alliance.net is allied with www.UnitedSpaceAgency.com and www.Air-Alliance.net. and many other domains.
I’m a legend in my own mind, if not in my own time, which is the future. One a lot better than we’re headed for … see my ‘www.SavingThePla.net

Source | Domain News
Photo | Flickr

Delta wins arbitration case

Delta Airlines won a dispute over the domain delta-tickets.com at the WIPO last week. The name was originally registered by Jannie Blazek, a citizen of the Czech Republic.

The one-person arbitration panel sided with Delta, agreeing with the airline that the domain was being used in bad faith.

According to the WIPO, Blazek was using the Delta name fraudulently, claiming to sell airline tickets and collecting credit card numbers in the process. He also failed to respond when the dispute was filed by Delta.

Sounds like an open-and-shut case to me.

Photo | LeeA

Deutsche Kreditbank wins at WIPO

Deutsche Kreditbank has filed and won a dispute at the WIPO over the domain DKB.com. This is not surprising, however, considering the name’s owner never used the name, could not be reached, and did not respond to the filing.

The arbitrator, John Swinson, decided that the name was being used in bad faith and ordered it be transferred to the bank:

[I]t does not seem conceivable that the Respondent has legitimate plans to use the disputed domain name in the future when the name has been dormant for such an extended period of time and where (as the evidence suggests) the Respondent no longer exists.

Simply because the domain wasn’t being used and the owner could not be contacted, the arbitrator ruled it was being used in bad faith. In a true court of a law, a similar decision probably would have been made, but the idea that a registrant can lose a domain for failing to develop it is a scary one for domainers.

Photo | Flickr

Singapore Airlines wins silverkris.com

Singapore Airlines has won a dispute filed at the WIPO. It involved ownership of the domain silverkris.com, which the company claimed was confusingly similar to its trademark, “SilverKris.”

The registrants, Wilson Yang and Chuan Lee, argued that since the name is made up of two English words (a “kris” is a type of Indonesian dagger), it does not violate any trademark. “SilverKris” is the name of the airline’s frequent-flyer lounges.

Needless to say, the WIPO disagreed and awarded the name to Singapore Airlines. Yang and Lee never stood a chance.

Photo | Flickr

Does WHOIS privacy protection constitute bad faith?

In a recent dispute over domain ShoeZone.com, arbitrator WIPO declared the owner guilty of bad faith and ordered the name be transferred to a UK trademark holder. This was in part due to his use of WHOIS privacy protection to hide his contact details:

…the Respondent’s use of the privacy service is at least consistent with bad faith. A respondent’s use of a privacy service is likely to cause a complainant some delay while it endeavors to ascertain details of the true respondent to its prospective complaint, and the respondent continues to derive click-through revenue during that period of delay.

This is the first time privacy protection has ever been ruled as bad faith. While the service does hide the user’s contact information from the WHOIS database, it can be revealed by the privacy service provider in legal and ownership disputes, usually only after receiving a subpoena.

Cybersquatters and other violators of domain ethics often do use WHOIS privacy as a shield for their actions, but the majority of people using this service do so legitimately. To mark it as bad faith is akin to arresting someone for removing their name from the phone book.

Source | The Domains

Photo | Flickr

Bitter Domain Dispute Comes to an End

A recent domain dispute between Urban Logic Inc. and Urban Logic, Peter Holland has ended in a ruling of reverse domain name hijacking. Peter Holland registered urbanlogic.com in 1999 and used it for his consulting business before turning it into a blog for Vietnam veterans. Urban Logic Inc. owns the domain urbanlogic.org and later registered the Urban Logic trademark.

For six years, from 2003 to 2009, the companies exchanged emails, occasionally forwarding mail mistakenly sent to one or the other. They maintained a friendly relationship, both well aware of the other’s business. From time to time, Urban Logic Inc. would ask the other Urban Logic if he was willing to sell urbanlogic.com, an offer he repeatedly declined. In June of this year, and for reasons we may never truly know, Urban Logic Inc. filed a domain dispute with the WIPO.

Apparently the six-year friendship was over. They were out for blood, and the court case included bitter remarks from both sides. In the end, however, the WIPO was not impressed. Urban Logic Inc. did not have first claims on the name, nor did they even attempt to contest urbanlogic.com during the course of the six years in which they communicated with the respondent. The WIPO ruled that it was simply a bitter attempt at reverse domain name hijacking that cost Urban Logic, Peter Holland time and money.

Source: WIPO
Photo: Flickr

WIPO Rules Against a Trademark Holder

In what is clearly an exceptional yet not completely unique type of case, the WIPO has ruled against a legitimate trademark holder in a domain dispute. Runway Beauty Inc. filed a complaint against Errol Hernandez, who registered and parked runwaymagazine.com, runwaymagazine.net, and runwaymagazine.org. The website opens to a portal stating that it will be a social site about fashion and beauty but with no other content as of yet.

The complainant, Runway Beauty, has a website called runwaymagazine.us and offers an international print magazine about fashion, beauty, and entertainment. They own the U.S. trademark Runway Magazine, registered in 2008. The respondent first registered the disputed domains back in 1999. He intended to make a website, but never found the time or resources. In 2008, when he received complaints from Runway Beauty Inc., he began creating a website.

The panel acknowledged the first two conditions of UDRP: that the disputed domains are confusingly similar to trademarks held by the complainant and that the respondent had no legitimate business interests or rights in the domain. On the third crucial point, however, the panel did not believe Hernandez had registered the domains in bad faith. He registered the domains long before Runway Beauty even existed and always intended to make a legitimate non-commercial website.

Source: WIPO
Photo: Flickr

WIPO rules in favor of free speech over trademark

In a rather interesting domain dispute, the Sutherland Institute, a right-wing think tank, accused the registrants of sutherlandinstitute.com of cybersquatting. The actual website of the institute is sutherlandinstitute.org. The respondents used the .com top-level domain to run an protest site they claimed was a parody of the real Sutherland Institute.

Although the institute was able to demonstrate that they owned the right to the name and that it was confusingly similar to their trademark, the WIPO was reluctant to rule that it was registered in bad faith. Their reasoning is that the laws of free speech in the United States protect individuals and organizations from prosecution when they are offering protest or parody.

“Because this proceeding involves political speech that is strongly protected under the US Constitution, the Panel will not in these proceedings involving two US parties attempt to identify bad faith elements that are not specifically enumerated in the Policy,” said the WIPO ruling. “If the right of political speech is to be interfered with based upon [the Institute's] service mark incorporated in [the parody site's] disputed domain name, it is preferable that a federal or state court make that application of the concept of ‘bad faith’.”

Source: Out-Law.com
Photo: Flickr

Dolphins.com up for domain dispute

A new case has been filed with the WIPO regarding dolphins.com. The complainant is the Miami Dolphins, a U.S.-based American football team. A quick look at the website reveals that it points to a series of links and ads mostly about the Miami Dolphins. This seems to be the reason and nature of the domain dispute.

If the site were truly about the warm-blooded sea mammal dolphins, I doubt the Miami football team would be so eager to file a complaint. The person or company that registered this domain did it to make money from the Dolphins’ name, and they undoubtedly have. With keywords like “dolphins tickets”, “fantasy football”, and “football tickets”, they have setup a cash machine for themselves.

We will keep you post on the results of this case. As with similar cases, I cannot help but wonder if transferring the domain names over to the rightful trademark owner is enough. People involved in cybersquatting seem content to keep doing what they do. They make money on a domain for as long as they can. When the scam is revealed, they pack up and leave, money in hand.

Source: UDRPsearch
Photo: Flickr

Victoria's Secret undresses a cybersquatter

Florida resident Chris Williams must have thought he was really on to something when he registered victoriassecretangelcreditcard.com. As with most cybersquatting, he used the domain name to setup a website with third-party links, some of which linked to competitors of the popular lingerie company. He did not respond to the complaint filed with the WIPO.

Victoria’s Secret Stores Brand Management, Inc. owns the trademark Victoria’s Secret, which markets their brands of women’s lingerie and other apparel. They also have numerous stores with the same brand name. On their website, they offer a store credit card called Angel Card, which Williams undoubtedly knew when he add the combination “angelcreditcard” to the end of the trademark.

As with all cases reviewed by the WIPO, the complainant has to satisfy three elements in order to win a dispute: 1. that the domain is confusingly similar to their trademark, 2. that the respondent has no legitimate rights or interests to the domain name, and 3. that the domain was registered in bad faith. Williams did not respond to the charges or defend his actions. Therefore, the WIPO used what evidence there was to rule that the domain must be transferred.

Source: UDRPsearch
Photo: Flickr