Panelists should use common sense even when a domain owner doesn’t respond.
A PVC pipe maker in India is about to lose its domain name, and I bet it isn’t aware of it.
Umiya Poly Plast Industries uses the domain name VirginPVCPipe.com. It hosts its website on the domain name and has an email address tied to the domain. But it’s about to lose the domain name to Virgin Enterprises Limited.
Yes, that Virgin. The company known for Richard Branson. The company known for its airline and entertainment.
Why does Virgin want to shut down the website of a pipe maker in India?
That’s a great question. An even greater question is how a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist decided that the company in India was cybersquatting with the use of the domain name.
Virgin has trademarks in a number of fields, but I don’t believe PVC pipe is one of them.
Nonetheless, it filed a UDRP against the Indian company and the Indian company didn’t respond. The Whois for the domain is in the name of what appears to be a web developer. My guess is the PVC pipe maker isn’t aware of this dispute.
You can give a bit of leeway to a panelist for assuming the worst when someone doesn’t respond to a UDRP. But this case was so outlandish that I’m left scratching my head.
Virgin PVC is an industry term.
Panelist Tobias Zuberbühler wrote:
The fact that the Complainant has an extensive reputation for a series of marks comprising VIRGIN followed by a key word describing a business is likely to create the impression in the minds of Internet users that the website connected to the disputed domain name is in some way related to the Complainant or the Virgin Group.
Let me ask you something: If you saw a link for VirginPVCPipe.com, would you think it is associated with Richard Branson?
This line in the “Registered and used in bad faith section” also sets off alarm bells:
In view of the notoriety of the Complainant’s trademark, the Panel finds it plausible that the Respondent has registered and used the disputed domain name in an attempt to attract Internet users to its website for commercial gain, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement of the website or of the products presented on the website…
Plausible? Is that now the standard for bad faith in a UDRP?
Richard Branson could take down many adult sites now since they clearly are using the term Virgin to confuse.
I agree, totally baffling and that panelist should no longer be a panelist, who hires/fires these people?
Tobias Zuberbühler is probably just siding with what ever company is most likely to give him repeat business.
Unbelievable if this is true
What would it take to take down the whole UDRP panel and process?
Becoming a joke. I want hackers to hack the lives of these people and find out what they are about
There are more than 85 dispute cases filled by Virgin Enterprises: https://www.dndisputes.com/search?complainant_name=Virgin+Enterprises. There is no response in 43 cases and Virgin Enterprises “won” all of them.
If the complainant does not respond, the decision will be TRANSFER with a probability of 96%: https://www.dndisputes.com/search?respondent_reply=false
I doubt anyone at virgin corporate knows about the case. They leave it up to the law firm.
The law firm notices that their billable hours are down so they go looking for cases to generate 25 (or more) billable hours per case plus expenses. $ 10k here, $ 10K there, it starts to mount up.
Virgin corporate and the Indian company are both getting screwed by the law firm.
I wonder how many of the domains virgin wins do they drop?
What an ignorant panellist!
Virgin PVC is a commonly used term in the industry. He should have visited Alibaba and searched for the term, it’s a term like virgin olive oil.
Virgin even took away a clearly religious domain: http://domaingang.com/domain-law/hard-to-be-a-virgin-in-2016-virginreality-com-domain-lost-in-udrp/
Another instance where a trademark apparently trumps a generic dictionary word that has been in use for hundreds of years. Criminal.
That panelist needs to be shamed into obscurity.
The domain name owner should have responded to the UDRP with “We never sell pipe that’s been used or abused; it’s virgin!”
Cute, but in point of fact, there are two kinds of PVC pipe. The designation “virgin PVC” refers to PVC which has not been manufactured from recycled materials.
It takes all of about ten seconds to note that the Respondent is a PVC pipe manufacturer, and that “virgin PVC” is a generic industry term to what the Respondent sells.
It was an entirely appropriate domain name for that purpose.
This is the type of injustice that TV networks should mention – big corporate hurting small business. Human interest story.
But, I think the news networks like Branson. So, they will not do anything to embarrass him.
Maybe a twitter storm directed at him might make him aware?