Company files UDRP for generic domain name.
Who owns the South Pole?
A clothing company thinks it does.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
The onslaught of companies trying to steal generic domain names continues.
The latest attempt is from Wicked Fashions, Inc., a clothing brand that has a couple trademarks for “SouthPole” for its clothing lines. The company wants to get its hands on SouthPole.com and filed a complaint through Nation Arbitration Forum that commenced yesterday.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that SouthPole.com doesn’t infringe on Wicked Fashions’ trademark. The domain, currently parked at DomainSponsor, doesn’t have any links related to clothing. For many years, in the hands of a previous owner, it was a full web site.
Wicked Fashions has a number of trademarks for SouthPole, including one that claims a first use in commerce in 1994.
But guess what? Other companies have South Pole trademarks. For example, there’s a South Pole brand for fresh vegetables dating all the way back to a first use in 1958. That trademark was filed in 1968.
Wicked Fashions’ domain name for SouthPole clothing is Southpole-usa.com, so it’s no wonder it wants a better domain name. But how it plans to prove that the domain infringes its trademarks and that it was registered in bad faith is beyond me.
Open up the checkbook & start writing.You cheap bastards.
This is a great example how prior use is so critical. If the parked page showed clothing advertisements (for which there is no relationship with the words “South Pole” except as related to the Complainants alleged trademark rights), there would be some risk of transfer. By excluding those ads, the registrant may lose some ad revenue but increases their ability to protect the domain under the UDRP. The registrant may even achieve a reverse hijacking decision.
After successfully defending this domain in the UDRP, the price of poker will no doubt go up. Pushing a registrant into a bogus UDRP is a bad way to start negotiations on purchase price. Trademark holders are better offer simply engaging in good faith negotiations for purchase right out of the gate.
Great domain BTW.
Of course we don’t know that they didn’t try to buy the domain first and then, when their attempt failed, filed the UDRP.
It warms my heart every time I hear a loser at trying to own generic terms. Seen three of them Ashley.com, Fired.com and SouthPole.com. Hurrah for the average man.