Domain name registrant came up with a creative defense in UDRP.
A National Arbitration Forum panel has ordered the domain name Michele.watch transferred to watchmaker Fossil Group, Inc.
I’ve got to hand it to the respondent in this case. He put up a spirited defense of his registration of Michele.watch.
Kucevic said he didn’t register the domain name to take advantage of Fossil’s Michele brand of watches. Instead, he registered it for use as a pole dancing site. The idea was that visitors could “watch michele” do pole dances and such.
He actually had me siding with him in his defense…at first. The problem is that Kucevic registered a number of other brands in .watch that would be harder to defend: bering.watch, breda.watch, breil.watch, croton.watch, stuhrling.watch, swisslegend.watch, and timeforce.watch. Oh, and he also listed Michele.watch and other domains for sale on Sedo.
The rationale panelist Maninder Singh used to decide the case is rather weak and boilerplate. But the registration of other watch brands pretty much doomed the domain name owner’s argument that Michele.watch was created for a porn site, not because of the watch brand.
Philip says
Those watching a michele.watch porn video would probably be ‘on the clock’ anyway 😉
bul says
He’s a loser. Next is watching croton taking it from his boyfriend 😉