Company lost legal rights objections for weibo domain names.
Chinese internet giant Tencent is the latest company to ask ICANN to reconsider a new top level domain objection decision.
The company is challenging the legal rights objections brought by rival Sina against its applications for .微博 and .weibo.
Sina was the only other applicant for these domain names. By winning the objections, it no longer faces other applicants and will likely obtain the top level domain names.
Sina claims trademark rights to the terms, but they are also common terms in China for micro blogging services (a la Twitter). Many micro blogging services call themselves by these names.
I’m not sure that the three person panel in this case (which included a dissent) got the decision right.
Tencent argues that this is one of many inconsistent rulings coming out of objection panels, in part because ICANN did not provide proper guidelines to the outside arbitration companies and/or they weren’t followed correctly.
Other companies to file requests for reconsideration with ICANN’s board include Commercial Connect, Amazon, Merck KGaA, Dish DBS, and Hotel Top Level Domain S.a.r.l.
Of all of the reconsideration requests, I’d say Amazon has the most legitimate gripe after a panelist determined that .通販, which is Japanese for “Online Shopping”, is too similar to .shop.
Of course, UDRP reform was put on the sidelines in the rush for ICANN insiders to profit from new gTLDs, despite providers making inconsistent UDRP rulings and not following proper guidelines…..
These companies should go to the courts, like parties to bad UDRP decisions are forced to do.
I suspect they will if ICANN denies their request. Del Monte already has.