Owner of ChinesePod.com loses case against ChinesePot.com.
Language instruction service Chinesepod Limited, which uses the domain name ChinesePoD.com, has lost a UDRP against the owner of ChinesePoT.com.
It’s a case of a “typo” also being a common word.
The owner of ChinesePot.com didn’t respond to the UDRP, but ChinesePod didn’t convince a World Intellectual Property panelist of the merits of its case. Although the parked page at ChinesePot.com consists of lots of links to language instruction, ChinesePod made an amusing assertion and shot itself in the foot.
The company said that, because a Google search for ChinesePot returned results related to Chinese porcelains and cooking recipes, this was somehow indicative of bad faith by the domain name owner.
Surely this assertion was somehow lost in translation?
The panelist also dismissed ChinesePod’s allegation that using whois privacy is a sign of bad faith, and that the respondent knew of the complainant when it registered the domain name.
The issue of Chinese Marijuana didn’t appear to be discussed in the case.
Nat Cohen says
Well done by panelist Maxim Waldbaum, as domain owners rarely benefit from a critical analysis of the Complainant’s case when they fail to respond to a UDRP.