Company defends one objection for .cam, still faces a string confusion objection.
Demand Media subsidiary United TLD Holdco Ltd has defended itself against a legal rights objection over its .cam top level domain name application.
AC Webconnecting Holding B.V., a competing applicant for the string, based its objection on community trademark registrations for “.cam” as a word as well as a .cam logo. It also said it is the controlling shareholder of a company that has trademarks that include “cam” in them.
Panelist Andrew Christie, who is known for twisting the UDRP to favor complainants , decided the case.
He determined that the case failed on three prongs. He ruled that the use of the .cam domain:
1. does take unfair advantage of the distinctive character or the reputation of the Objector’s registered or unregistered trademark or service mark (“mark”)
2. unjustifiably impair the distinctive character or the reputation of the Objector’s mark
3. otherwise create an impermissible likelihood of confusion between the applied-for gTLD string < .cam> and the Objector’s mark
This is another example of a company registering trademarks to try to get a leg up in the new top level domain application process.
The legal rights objection against Dot Agency Limited, the other applicant for .cam, is still pending.
Demand Media (and the other .cam applicants) still face a string confusion objection filed by Verisign, which claims .cam is too similar to .com.
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