Company says owner is cybersquatting with WiiU.com domain name.
Nintendo released WiiU, the successor to its popular Wii video game system Wii, in November. But it was missing a key online marketing ingredient: the domain name WiiU.com.
Now it has filed a cybersquatting complaint with World Intellectual Property Forum in an effort to get the domain name.
The whois record for the domain shows a registration date of 2004, well before Nintendo came up with the name for its new system. It was likely registered because it was a four letter domain.
But whois records make it difficult to determine when the current owner acquired the domain name. The domain expired in January, but the privacy service and whois record is the same as before it expired, so the owner may have renewed it. The nameservers on the domain changed after it went into expired status, which is a sign that a new owner may have picked it up.
Regardless, I find it odd that Nintendo filed a complaint rather than just buying the domain. It’s available for a fixed price of $8,499 on BuyDomains, which is a small price to pay for a huge product name like this…especially when the UDRP isn’t a slam dunk.
Mike says
It always amazes me how “tight” rich people and rich companies can be . I had a .com taken via UDRP by one of richest men in the World. I was naive then. I then started getting trade marks for my domains and guess who has much later applied for same trademarks in my “neck of woods” ?. Yes the same guy who took the .com from me. Well now he is going to see a fight.
Kyle says
Nintendo is not one to go into fights, and buy things off for competition. Some companies are like that. But this baffles me, because its such a low cost for such a large product.
Michael Dougherty says
It is at least in part about principle. If you go to the website right now, there is no indication the page is for sale. The page is parked by a company that talks about being “the industry standard for domain name parking and monetization services.” It is also about money — if you settle once, you set a precedent and will see others trying the same thing to get money for nothing.
Rob says
@mike: “it amazes me how tight rich people can be”
well, that precisely why they are so rich! they hang on to every last cent they can steal from everyone (and stealing is often sadly the key word here). conversely the “poorer” people are frequently poor because they throw around money too easily and widespread.
this comment has nothing to do with nintendo, just a general response to your comment. maybe we should learn a few things from the rich people????????
PoI2013 says
Well.Since Nintendo is a big corporation. Executives of the company such as CMO or CIO should be directly responsible for not obtaining WiiU.com before its launch.
Now they want to get it for free by filing a complaint and steal it if the respondent do not reply or does not have resource to fight back.Nintendo’s executives will learn a big lesson, they should be fired by shareholders for such a poor job They will lose because this name was register in 2004 and Wii didn’t come out until 2006. This will cost them not only the money side but the company image and reputation as whole punch of crooks. They better settle with a right price with the owner but I doubt that they will because of their ego. Stupid corporation.