Kraft awarded domain name for cream cheese brand.
Kraft, maker of Philadelphia cream cheese, has been awarded the domain name Philadelphia.es by an arbitration panel at World Intellectual Property Organization.
Isn’t Philadelphia a generic term, meaning the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania? Perhaps. But the domain owner didn’t respond to the allegations in the case. He could have easily responded to the charges, arguing that he planned to set up a tourism web site for people in Spain (.es country code) planning to visit Philadelphia. After all, it appears he didn’t use the Philadelphia.es domain name to provide information about cream cheese.
Loosely translated from Spanish, the arbitrator wrote:
it is hard to imagine a use of the domain that did not involve violating the provisions of the UDRP, so the expert can only assume as known behavior and assumed by the Respondent at the time of registration and subsequent use of the Domain Name
True, if it were Philadelphia.us it would be much easier to determine a reasonable use other than promoting the Kraft brand of cream cheese. But a couple weeks ago someone paid 65,450 EUR for Pakistan.de. On the surface, that doesn’t make much sense either. Yet many of my readers pointed out that Pakistan.de can be used for tourism, politics, etc. So a discussion of the fact that Philadelphia is a city should have at least been explored by the panelist.
Kraft owns many other Philadelphia country code domains, including Philadelphia.be, .de, .com.mx, and .co.uk.
Kraft hasn’t always lucked out going after its brands in country code domain names though. Last year it lost a case for Oreo.nl.
jorge says
Sets a lovely precedent.
John says
Well it is a made up law by corporations who wanted an easy way to steal domains. So they lobbied for this mock court, and guess what it worked…
Now all of us domainers have to deal with this mockery of a sham. Too bad we weren’t smart enough to lobby for laws that would benefit us. It is all a cash sum game in the end.
However this case is not new. TM holders have been using generic words for decades. Before the internet if you put a word on a package you could sue anyone else that used that word. But not that there is so much competition, how can you REALLY own a word? If you didn’t CREATE that word, how is it yours forever in the courtroom?
The law is the problem. And the arrogant lawyers and legal teams of large corporations will go after domainers because we are easy targets. We have little rights, and the crime that these lawyers are committing may not even be exposed by the mainstream.
This industry is in trouble, and it’s the close-minded ignorants that learned about domains from DNF and namepros is the problem as well. We have a large mostly poor ignorant community of schmuck domainers telling everyone about how TMs should not be “squatted” but what happens when the TM holders go after your generic? Then who are you sticking up for? Like I said, schmucks that do not represent the smart, rich domain community.
not responding to UDRP = bad faith
under construction = bad faith (sometimes)
owning multiple domains = bad faith
panelist is unsure = bad faith
panelist is lazy = bad faith
In UDRP you are considered bad faith until you can prove you are not. Which shouldn’t it be the other way around? Should kraft have to prove that cream cheese is what everyone thinks of when they hear “philidelphia” not just assume that everyone that hears philly is thinking of a fucking cream cheese.
Not only that but their cream cheese isn’t even good. It is a shit product, made by a shit company. They should be sued for being shit, but we do not have any system that protects people. Only a system that protects companies…
Mansour says
Andrew,
This is one of the most stupid decisions that I have seen a WIPO panelist decide. It is what I consider very cheesy. When I am asked ‘what you want on your bagel,’ I say ‘cream cheese,’ I never say put Philadelphia on my bagel. To protest the decision and after reading your article, I registered the domain name philidelphia.net in Arabic. Most likely I will donate it to the people of Philadelphia so they can have an Arabic version domain name for their city since the cheesy Philadelphia took over their domain name.
فيلادلفيا.net (xn--mgbax4ecpc8bf.net)
DomainersChoice.com says
panelist is unsure = bad faith
panelist is lazy = bad faith
lol
cvbcvbcvb says
THis is absolutely blatant decision, just confirms bias of UDRP panelists. BTW this “cheese” (it’s not a cheese more like some chemicaly made quark) taste like crap, once I bought it and had to rubbish it – inedible
Ngoc says
Things like this should not even go to court in the first place. Hopefully the right owner can get his hand on some lawyers, sue for damanges, and reverse the decision, and sue back the UDRP idiot panelists who can’t see common sense.
What in the world does the word Philadelphia becomes exclusively “Kraft” is beyond common sense.
OuMun says
They also own philadelphia.it .hk .ie and many more