Panel denies claim to Branson.guru.
Last month I wrote about how billionaire Richard Branson had filed some cases under the new Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy to suspend domains that cybersquatted his name and brands.
One case that hadn’t been filed at the time was for Branson.guru. A decision has been handed down and Branson has the distinction of being the first person to lose a URS case.
Branson’s lawyers (actual counsel for his company Virgin) made a couple statements in their case that are just flat out silly:
Bearing in mind, there is no believable or realistic reason for registration or use of the domain name branson.guru…
Bearing in mind the extent and nature of the Complainant’s reputation in BRANSON and Sir Richard Branson’s own personal reputation, it is impossible to envisage any legitimate purpose for registering the branson.guru domain name, other than to capita[l]ise or gain from the Complainant’s reputation in some way.
The first thing I think of when I hear branson.guru is a site about the tourist destination Branson, Missouri. I don’t envision a “guru” site about Richard Branson.
My guess is the lawyers basically made the same case they did for RichardBranson.holdings/.ventures.
The panelist rightfully denied the case. Unless the registrant put up a parking page with ads related to Virgin or Richard Branson, or tried to sell the domain directly to the complainant, this case was dead on arrival.
The domain registrant did not reply to the case.
(photo: virgin.com)
What a pompous jerk “Sir” Richard is……so he thinks he’s the only Branson in the world?……….
Well he has options to a lease option these domains are going for millions and lease option to richard by owner but sorry you snooz you lose but with gtld lease everyone wins I believe 12000.00 month would be proper for a top domain if branson wanted revinue for their town and sir branson gets a tax deduction