As if a flimsy trademark wasn’t enough…
It’s bad enough that Romantic Tours, Inc. has convinced three panels to hand over domain names based on its trademark for “Hot Russian Brides”. Now the company has gone too far: it tried to get a domain name based on a directory on the web site.
Romantic Tours, Inc. filed the case against the owner of JimsLists.com. The reason? One of the directories on his site is called /hotrussianbrides. Specifically, the company tried to get the entire domain name JimsLists.com because of this URL:
jimslists.com/agencies/hotrussianbrides
Of course, Romantic Tours lost the case. As the arbitrator pointed out, you can’t filed a UDRP because there’s a trademark somewhere in a web site’s naming structure.
The owner of JimsLists.com decided to remove the folders from his web site, but someone needs to challenge this company on its “Hot Russian Brides” trademark filed with the USPTO.
Wow.
Imagine if they had won.
It would be a free-for-all.
Why was there no finding of RDNH in this case? How is it possible to have a more clear cut case where there was no genuine substance to the complaint?
This was RDNH but corrupted dumb panelist didn’t think so WTF
It is hard to imagine grown adults have produced something like ICANN & UDRP.
This frivolous case demostrates legal chutpah (audacity) to the max.
It reminded me of a C&D letter I received a couple years ago from a law firm for a major brand. She said my domain was infringing on the company’s tm because if someone typed-in that brand in the search box on the ppc page it generated a subpage.
(generic).com Then, the explicit search created
(generic).com/tm.html
Fortunately, Stevan Leiberman notified her she is nuts. (politely)
It suppose it could get much worse if this held… Consider that there are 10 USPTO registered marks, with Mark Drawing Codes of either “Standard Character Claim” or “Typed Drawing”, with 8 having the mark in question as the single letter “A” (without quotes), one for “A-” (confusingly similar to “A” leading to likelihood of confusion, and one that includes the quotes “A”)…
ok folks, all of you that have a URL using the letter “A”: prepare to hand them over to the following owners (reg numbers):
3116760
2862095
2212818 word mark is “A” with quotes
2062988 word mark is A- with dash
1761918
1749619
1748114
1605164
1781966
1343038
Most have filing basis “1A” on the Principal Register.
Oh, not to worry.
Wait until the IP nitwits deplore this “loophole” in the UDRP and demand that ICANN fix it.
what can i say the world has gone crazy
Next I will be sued by every website with ezy in its name.
should i seek legal advice. lol
“trademark” is always an obsession of domain name owners.