Is that The State Farm Bowl or the State “farm bowl”?
State Farm has lost another cybersquatting dispute because of how its name can be interpreted when combined with other words.
The latest decision is for TheStateFarmBowl(.)com.
Just looking at the domain, you might think this is a domain related to a football game that State Farm would sponsor.
But it could be read as “The state ‘farm bowl'”. The owner said he registered the domain for a website that will display wooden bowls in the outlines of states as part of an arts and crafts project. I’m not sure what a farm bowl is, but OK.
The company previously lost a dispute for BigStateFarmAgent(.)com. That could be read as “’big state’ ‘farm agent’”.
Of course, if these domains were used to show insurance links, the owners probably would have lost the cases. Absent obvious intent, however, the panelists in both cases determined that State Farm didn’t show the domains were confusingly similar.
lifesavings.online says
It would be interesting to look at how many US trademark holders get denied vs other countries. Easier said than done, because the big part of data is subjective – ‘is it a good or bad decision’ by ICANN?
Coming to mind is that German company that won 3 letter acronym…one that wasn’t even an exact match of their *actual* business name.
Would a US company win similar UDRPs?
Then, what about US registrants vs other nations? Does ICANN discriminate against US registrants?
The evidence is out there..not easy to sort though.
Perhaps since I’ve made you aware, you can notice some future details..
Food for thought.
Chris says
It would be interesting, but I doubt Americans actively get discriminated against. But I also doubt that everyone globally interprets the dispute resolution rules in the same way. Especially when you consider that many lawyers and panelists don’t exclusively handle UDPR cases, but also handle IT-law cases from their own country. So they probably have lots of local case law in the back of their mind.
Local laws often have minor differences in regulations and interpretations, which can certainly sway cases to one side or another. For example how do you prove if a domain is being used in good or bad faith? An American might consider domaining a proper business, while someone else might have some reservations. In many non-English language countries they adopted regulations on how to prove good faith, in line with and translated from the GDPR rules. But those translations might not be entirely accurate.
With some cctlds you could lose your domain to someone who registered a trademark AFTER you registered the domain, which a panelist could accidentally apply to gtlds. And an American might know exactly how to apply fair use, while in other countries fair use doesn’t even exist. And when is a trademark even infringed? In some countries they believe a domain name by itself doesn’t infringe a trademark at all, unless the underlying website competes with or damages the reputation of the trademark owner. After which you might wonder how appropriate your parking page is for that panelist.
So, I highly doubt these uniform procedures are actually applied uniformly. As everyone carries different legal baggage with them.
Chris says
One small correction: where I said GDPR I meant UDRP. All those confusing acronyms..
Observer says
Is State Farm stupid?
Why did they perceive this domain to be harmful when they acknowledged it was inactive? How is adding “bowl” to the their brand as a domain damaging?
It seems to me like their in-house counsel is trying to impress his superiors in order to justify their job or something like that.
lifesavings.online says
I agree State farm shouldn’t of worried about it until they had evidence of misuse / infringement.
Don’t believe the registrants story neither tho. Let’s see if they use it for their claimed purpose eh? Seems far fetched.
With whois block, we have no idea what other domains this person might have.Which is one of the biggest pcs. of evidence to prove a ‘bad faith’ domainer – habitual infringer.
Only ICANN knows. I do doubt looked into it.