Tuesday, 27 November 2012 06:26 Domain News
Audi has lost an arbitration case over the domain name AudiCity.com .In a decision released recently,the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,dismissed Audi’s complaint which claimed that it was entitled to the domain AudiCity.com .
Audi filed a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center on September 27,2012,asserting legal rights over the disputed domain name.The company claimed that the domain name is confusingly similar to its trademark for "Audi" .Moreover,the company contended that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name and that the respondent registered and used the domain in bad faith .
However,the Panel decided that there are " circumstances that indicate that the Respondent has registered the Domain Name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the Domain Name registration to the Complainant. The Domain Name has been registered for more than 10 years, and there is no evidence that the Respondent has ever attempted to sell the Domain Name. Furthermore, when asked by the Complainant to transfer the Domain Name, the Respondent refused without making a counter-offer, citing the costs that the transfer would impose on him in changing his various email addresses.
There is no evidence that the Respondent has engaged in a pattern of conduct of registering domain names (including the Domain Name) to prevent trade mark owners from registering a corresponding domain name. The Respondent admits to registering five or six additional domain names for personal purposes but there is no evidence that they reflect a trade mark or that the Respondent has used them to prevent an entity from reflecting its marks in a corresponding domain name.
There is no evidence that the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its website or other online location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the Respondent’s Website. The Domain Name was first registered in 2001. Since that period there have been various images on Respondent’s Website, including an old photo of San Francisco, a photo of an electric guitar, a photo of an individual that is presumably Paul Steffan, and a blank page with the message “Somebody set us up the bomb!”. None of the uses of the Domain Name, either as a webpage or as an email address, appear to be for commercial gain."
Having not be able to prove all the three elements equired,the Panel decided to deny the complaint .
You can read the decision here .
