Friday, 27 July 2012 11:57 Domain News
Google has lost an arbitration with the Blue Arctic company involving the domain name Oogle.com . Google filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum on June 5,2012,asserting legal right over the disputed domain name.
Google contended in its complaint that the domain name Oogle.com is confusingly similar to its "Google" mark .Moreover,the company contended that the responded has used the domain name to host websites that copy the Google logo,creating this way confusion and generating revenue from consumers who are seeking Google’s services.
In its response,the responded tried to defend his rights by saying that he has "“been the continuous and uninterrupted beneficial owner of the Domain Name since I originally created it on February 7, 1999,” and that "theonly reason why I ever changed the nominal registrant details was to reflect my current business name, which evoled from Fusion3k Designs to Blue Arctic (another unregistered business name) to most recently Blue Arctic LLC, a registered company.”
“My reason for registering the Domain Name was because in or about 1998 or 1999, I had become acquainted through the online world of software programming and website design, with another young programmer named Justin Tunney, who went under the online moniker of ‘Oogle’ or ‘Criminal Oogle’," he continued his declaration .
“Through my friendship with Oogle, I learned that Oogle had a personal website associated with the domain name, [], which Oogle had selected due to Oogle’s online moniker of ‘Oogle’. I noticed that Oogle had not registered [] and proceeded to register the Domain Name with the intention of collaborating on a website with Oogle,” the respondent stated.
The Panel said that Google has failed to establish any of the three elements it had to prove.Therefore,the Panel ordered that the disputed domain name to remain with the respondent.
You can read the decision here .
