The Complainant has a right to be upset but will have difficulty showing trademark rights.
UMass Memorial HealthAlliance has lost a UDRP for UrgentCareLeominster .com at World Intellectual Property Organization.
The hospital chain has a right to be upset about how the current owner of the domain is using it. The domain owner has created a copy of a former website used by the Complainant (seemingly on the same domain), only inserting a lead gen campaign for health insurance. It includes a picture of the Complainant’s facility and even its UMass Memorial HealthAlliance Hospital logo (with a typo).
The healthcare company lost the dispute because it didn’t show that it has common law trademarks in Urgent Care Leominster. Leominster is a city in Louisiana. I suspect the panelist, who invited the Complainant to refile with more information about the common law mark, would have accepted even nominal evidence.
Still, it seems like it would be a challenge to show common law rights in a very descriptive term. Should companies be able to have trademark rights in “Urgent Care (city name)”? That’s kind of like having trademark rights in “(city name) Hospital”.
I suspect the Complainant chose UDRP for this dispute because it is fast and affordable. It might want to file a lawsuit instead. It clearly has a case against a domain owner who is up to no good, even if it doesn’t exactly fit under UDRP.
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