Paris Loses another Geo Domain Case, But You Won’t Believe The Dissent…
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
Paris loses challenge to Paris.tv. A French arbitrator disagrees.
Ville de Paris — the City of Paris — has lost yet another domain name arbitration case.
At issue was Paris.tv. This isn’t the first time Paris has gone after this domain name. It sent two cease and desist letters to the owner of Paris.tv back in 2006. At that point, the owner of the domain name had enough and filed suit for declaratory relief under Lanham Act for Tortuous Interference with contract and defamation in the Southern District of New York. Paris then backtracked, suggesting the court had no jurisdiction over it.
Fast forward to 2009. After filing a number of UDRPs for domains including the word “Paris”, and getting sued in Texas court as a results, Paris went ahead and filed a UDRP against Paris.tv. It argued that it has a stylized trademark for “Paris”, and it has a video/TV segment on its Paris.fr web site, which might lead to confusion.
A three person panel found against Paris, ruling that Paris couldn’t rely on its stylized mark to go after anyone who uses a domain with “Paris” in it. Quite simply, the majority wrote “Complainant does not have exclusive world-wide rights to use the term [Paris].”
But what’s amazing is that one panelist dissented. And where is dissenting panelist Christiane Féral-Schuhl from? Yep. Paris, France. Once again, this dissent shows how laughable WIPO is as an institution. The fact that someone’s local ties to a city would cause them to go against ten years of UDRP principles is outrageous.
Not only did Féral-Schuhl find that the domain was confusingly similar to Paris’ mark, but also that the owner had no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name and it was registered and used in bad faith.
Further Reading:
That’s sickening a judge would vote that way.
French have always been spineless cowards.
I’d like to see Paris Hilton on Paris.tv but that’s just me.
At the very least I hope there is never a domain conference in Paris. When will the crap stop and a way to punish the perps be in place. All domain bloggers should write about this…it may at least stop a few trips to Paris.
@ Tom – interestingly, the panel did discuss that Paris.tv could just as likely be used by Paris Hilton.
Sure Paris wasn’t named after Paris.
And Paris, Texas is the most famous city of the world holding that name… After Paris in Las Vegas.
Hello from Paris
To be sold fore many many figures: paris.tv, but listen, no video from Paris, France.
Lol, good luck!
You couldn’t have asked for a better dissention on record. Her intentions are as obvious as when the USSR Olympic judges used to give the US athletes consistently low scores. It essentially disqualifies her argument.
Quote -
“At the very least I hope there is never a domain conference in Paris”
There was a domain meeting in Paris in 2008.
http://dnjournal.com/events/2008/domainer-meeting-preview.htm
when these guys leave domain hijacking
Decision posted:
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2009/dtv2009-0010.html
John,
If you keep winning the cases against Paris, they will not permit you to enter the country.
Congratulations, Great job.
Great post, Andrew! The question is, when so many know if this issue, why isn’t something done to whip WIPO into shape, for heaven’s sake?
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