Facebook Wins Facebook.me Domain Name in Arbitration
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
Social networking site picks up domain name in arbitration.
A World Intellectual Property Forum panelist has awarded the domain name Facebook.me to the giant social networking site.
In what may be one of the longest WIPO UDRP decisions I’ve ever read, the panelist ruled against Amjad Abbas. Facebook claimed that Abbas had placed the domain name on a page with other domains that were for sale for a minimum of $2,000. Other domains listed for sale on the site included altagoogle.com, oracle.me and trump.me.
The panelist summarized the reason Abbas claimed to have registered some of the domains:
The Respondent went on to advise the Registrar that he had bought several .me domain names, and had other .com and .net domain names which he had held for more than six years. The reason the Respondent offered to the Registrar for holding these domain names was that he enjoyed collecting domain names, especially unique ones – he achieved “joy and satisfaction with my ‘IT/Internet’ friends here”.
The Respondent told the Registrar in his May 6, 2010 email that he paid around USD6,000 to win an auction for the Domain Name, and that during the auction process he was checking almost every 10 minutes on his mobile phone over a period of more than five days until he was confirmed as the highest bidder. As for his future intentions for the Domain Name, the Respondent told the Registrar the he would not sell it or transfer it or forward it to an improper site, or otherwise use it in bad faith. The Respondent told the Registrar that one of his ideas was to point the Domain Name to his personal Facebook page after he had completed that page, so that he would have “the most unique personal Facebook page URL in the world!! … hence I communicate to all my friends that my Facebook page is ‘www.FaceBook.me’!! They will not believe it, until they try it. Wow, that would be great.”
He apparently bought the Facebook.me domain name in the landrush period for .me for $5,115.
One other interesting note for UDRP enthusiasts: Facebook tried to change to a three member panel from a one member panel after receiving a response in the case. The panelist denied the action.
Further Reading:
HAW HAW
“He apparently bought the Facebook.me domain name in the landrush period for .me for $5,115.”
What a dumb move..
poor guy, but isn’t face book considered a general term?
ValueDrops – it’s so generic that it has its own fan page on USPTO
http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=77189479
Technically, the term “facebook” is generic. It just depends on how you use it. This guy clearly thought of the social network.
If he had been smarter he may have been able to keep it, because facebook is a generic word for a college or university directory/yearbook.
Listing it on a page of for sale domains with other names that have famous trademarks wasn’t a good idea.
Saying he would forward it to his Facebook.com page wasn’t a good idea either.
Making it a site for a facebook for a school or workplace, without any reference to Facebook.com, might have allowed him to keep it.
…. or he could have made it into a site critical of Facebook – a legitimate use of a domain name that contains a trademarked term. This type of use seems to be ignored when people criticize registrars for selling obvious trademark infringing domain names.
Not that they don’t deserve the criticism but certainly if “critical use” of this type of site is legal then the sale of trademark containing domain names is certainly so as well.
So the elephant in the room here would seem to be, why didn’t Facebook register this domain during the sunrise period for TM holders? I can see why most companies wouldn’t want to expend the effort or money to register every mew ccTLD that comes along, but dot Me should have been on their radar.
Blatant cybersquatting. Deserved to lose. Good for Facebook.
LOL……
it’s the bit about one panel member that get me wondering ?????
bribery anyone !
its too easy for corruption to happen with only one person
How about the guy who bought Toyota.me for about $100,000 in the landrush auction?