Archive for the ‘National Arbitration Forum’ Category
Your comadre wouldn’t approve.
The National Arbitration Forum has found against Texas company Comadre Commerce, LLC in arbitration over the domain name Comadre.com.
This is despite the owner of the domain name not responding. Had the owner responded, this case could have been an easy case of reverse domain name hijacking.
First things first, comadre is a generic term meaning “godmother” in Spanish.
Second, Comadre Commerce said it had a trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But it only attached a printout from the USPTO concerning a Trademark Office Action Response. Here’s why: it really just has pending application that was filed after the respondent registered the domain — and it was filed as an intent to use application. So there’s no way the complainant could argue that the respondent registered the domain name in bad faith. It tried anyway.
The complainant also claimed that it made several reasonable offers to the domain owner, which the owner denied or ignored.
There’s also the puzzling assertion that (in the panelist’s words) “Respondent’s unauthorized use of Complainant’s image on Respondent’s various websites constitutes copyright and trademark infringement in violation of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 106(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976.”
Given that the complainant tried to buy the domain name multiple times and the domain was registered prior to its intent-to-use trademark filing and it’s a generic term and the Comadre Commerce was represented by counsel, I’d argue this is a clear case of reverse domain name hijacking.
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Video game maker unsuccessful in challenge to SSX.com domain name.
Electronic Arts releases a reinvention of the SSX snowboarding video game next month, but it has failed to convince an arbitration panel that it deserves the domain name SSX.com.
The domain name was purchased by Abstract Holdings International LTD as part of a $200,000 domain name portfolio purchase last October. For a brief period of time the domain name was parked with ads related to video games.
EA pounced on this brief infringing pay-per-click usage to show bad faith on the part of the registrant.
For its part, the registrant admitted a brief bad faith use of the domain name but said the domain wasn’t registered in bad faith.
The three person National Arbitration Forum panel determined that EA did not establish a prima facie case of bad faith:
The EA allegations of bad faith in part are based upon the lack of due diligence conducted by retailers of domain names like Respondent. EA would seem to require that entities like Respondent conduct an international search for relatively obscure trademarks in order to determine whether a name is a registered mark. The Panel is not willing to go so far, as discussed below.
Still, and particularly in this case, the Respondent is treading on thin ice. A fair reading of its pleadings reveals that Respondent made absolutely no attempt to examine its purchases for domain names which were also trademarks. Again, here, at least one “generic” string of three letters has been trademarked and is perhaps a common law mark of a number of business and other entities in a number of lines of business all around the world. Given the ease of searches using the common tools of the Internet, how much is it to ask of a retailer like Respondent to do a little extra work?
The panel also determined that the domain registrant had established rights or legitimate interests in the SSX.com domain name.
The respondent was represented by domain name attorney Zak Muscovitch of The Muscovitch Law Firm.
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Cut and past error shows Verizon Trademark Services winning CityCard.com UDRP.
We’ve seen a number of UDRP decisions that fall victim to cut-and-paste mistakes. The latest comes courtesy of a National Arbitration Forum panelist who copied the header from his previous UDRP case into the new one.
The new case is Citigroup Inc. v. Yongki over CityCard.com. Citigroup won the case, but you would know it from the header. The header says the case was Verizon Trademark Services LLC v. Kim Jong Su.
Why the mixup? The same panelist on CityCard.com wrote the Verizon decision for verision.com. Apparently he used the same template and forgot to change the header.
Practically speaking this error won’t lead to any sort of problem and will be corrected soon. But it would have been a bigger problem had the panelist accidentally left a different part of the Verizon UDRP intact.
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Arizona company loses domain name dispute over SchoolWebmaster.com.
NameMedia, which runs domain name marketplaces Afternic and BuyDomains, has taught the owner of SchoolWebmasters.com a lesson.
ScribeWrite, LLC operates as School Webmasters (schoolwebmasters.com), which provides web site services to schools and teachers. It filed a complaint with National Arbitration Forum in July, asking for it to award the domain name SchoolWebmaster.com (singular) to it.
NameMedia acquired SchoolWebmaster.com in 2006 after it expired. This was months before ScribeWrite even started using “School Webmaster” as a mark in commerce according to U.S. Patent and Trademark Office records.
Nevertheless, ScribeWrite didn’t want to to pay much for the domain name. It sent a cease and desist letter to NameMedia demanding the domain name for $800.
When that failed it paid $1,000+ to hire a lawyer and file a UDRP.
The UDRP panelist found the domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith and that NameMedia has rights and legitimate interests in the domain — one of hundreds it owns that combine a generic term with “webmaster”.
NameMedia’s current asking price for SchoolWebmaster.com? Just $3,088. A little negotiation could get that down to $2,000 or $2,500. So I’m confused by ScribeWrite’s approach to getting the domain.
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Domain names an issue for upcoming movie release.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is coming to theaters this November.
But before vampires duke it out on screen, a fight has already broken out over the film’s domain name: the creators have filed a complaint against the owner of BreakingDawnTheMovie.com in an effort to get the domain name. The complaint was filed with National Arbitration Forum.
Movie studios often add “themovie” to the end of titles in domain names when the name of the film itself is already registered. Because this version was taken, the studio has been forced to use breakingdawn-themovie.com with a hyphen as its domain.
Interestingly, BreakingDawn.com itself is already an active web site about another movie called Breaking Dawn.
Although the domain name is likely to be transferred, there are a whole host of web sites that discuss the new Twilight film and us the name in their domains. Among the results on the first page of Google when I search “Breaking Dawn Movie” are three blogs: breakingdawnmovie.org, thebreakingdawnmovie.org, and breakingdawnmovie101.org. My guess is the studio leaves all of these fan sites alone…it just wants BreakingDawnTheMovie.com to promote the film.
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Haunted house owner must transfer domain name to competitor.
The owner of screams.com has lost his domain name thanks to a ruling by a National Arbitration Forum panelist.
The owner of Cutting Edge Haunted House in Fort Worth, Texas registered Screams.com all the way back in 1997. The complainant has operated the Screams Halloween Theme Park, located in nearby Waxahachie, Texas, since 1996.
Even though “screams” is generic, I can certainly understand how the complainant believes the domain name was registered in bad faith to directly steal traffic from it.
My problem with the case is the length of time that has lapsed between when the domain name was registered and the case filed. In fact, the complainant says it sent notices to the respondent back in 1999. So it was clearly aware of the registration. Was it not confident in its rights to the domain back then to pursue it further?
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Google goes after another “survey” site.
Google has filed a complaint with National Arbitration forum to get a hold of Goggle.com, Goggle.net, and Goggle.org.
While the domain names could be considered “generic” for the term Google, it’s the use of the domain names that has the company up in arms.
Similar to another recent complaint over YouTube.ph, these domains forward to a survey page that then entices users to complete a number of offers.
The current page doesn’t imitate Google’s logo, but that wasn’t always the case. The site used to have a logo with a similar font to Google (courtesy DomainTools historical thumbnails):
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A very short but spot on UDRP decision.
I’m often critical of UDRP panelists for shirking their duties.
But I’m not going to complain about the decision on a recent case defended by Ari Goldberger.
Goldberger defended the domain name OrganizedPlay.com, which was registered by Blue Sandbox when it expired. The complainant, OrganizedPlay Corporation, said it owned the domain name before it accidentally let it expire.
A three member National Arbitration Forum wrote a very brief decision on the case finding against the complainant. It basically boils down to this:
Complainant has no trademark registration for the words “organized play” and has produced no evidence that, through use, those descriptive words have come to denote Complainant in the public mind, so as to give rise to common law trademark rights.
Accordingly the Complaint must fail. It is unnecessary to consider the other elements.
Some cases are so bogus that it doesn’t take a wordy explanation. This is one of those cases. Although I certainly think the panel should have considered reverse domain name hijacking since the respondent had to pay to defend this fruitless case.
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Company stunningly loses a domain arbitration case over HPPre.com.
With the HP Pre 3 getting ready to hit the market, HP filed a domain name dispute with National Arbitration Forum to get the domain name HPPre.com.
Here’s what happened:
-The day after HP announced its acquisition of Palm (maker of the Pre), the registrant registered the domain name
-The registrant created a splog at the domain name that grabbed stories about Palm products from sites such as Engadget
-The registrant added Adsense ads to the splog to monetize it
A slam dunk for HP, right? Amazingly, no.
I’m really scratching my head on this one as it seems to contradict just about every similar UDRP I’ve reviewed.
According to panelist Jeffrey M. Samuels, if you register a domain name to provide a “news and commentary” splog on the trademarked product and place ads on the site, you can still be making “legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name”.
Samuels wrote “Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name was not motivated substantially out of economic interest but, rather, out of an interest in providing a repository for comments regarding IT products”.
By that logic you can go out and “front run” multiple products that may be released in the future or name changes as the result of mergers, create an automated and ad-supported site on the domain, and you’ll be free and clear.
Hmm.
I suspect this isn’t the last we’ll here about this domain name.
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Three letter domain name saved by National Arbitration Forum.
Here’s a follow up to a domain name dispute I wrote about last month regarding a three letter domain name.
A National Arbitration Forum panel has denied the complaint for IXO.com brought by Robert Bosch GmbH, which has a line of power tools called IXO.
The decision is in German, so I’m relying on Google’s translator here. But essentially the panel ruled:
1. The owner has a legitimate interest in the domain name because he had started on plans to develop it.
2. It’s more than likely the registrant wasn’t specifically targeting the complainant and instead bought the domain name because it is a three letter domain name.
It doesn’t appear the complainant owns ixo.de, either.
I’m a little unclear about whether Robert Bosch GmbH has started selling its IXO line yet, so perhaps one of my German readers can chime in.
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