A man who owned the domain name redbullsucks.com has been ordered to hand it over to Red Bull, the energy drink company.
The man had claimed his was a protest site warning of the dangers of energy drinks but was found to be publishing a site at the address promoting a rival drink.
Carl Gamel of Kentucky in the US was found to have violated Red Bull's trade mark rights in registering the domain name redbullsucks.com and using it for commercial purposes.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)'s arbitration and mediation centre ruled on the domain under its uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP) which protects trade mark rights holders against bad faith users of domain names which are identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark.
The administrative panel in the case took Red Bull to task over its argument that the addition of 'sucks' to its trade mark was inherently confusing as to the origin of the domain name because 'sucks' was a generic term.
The panel rejected the argument that a user might think the domain name belonged to Red Bull because the term 'sucks' was so widely known as an insult, and therefore was a generic term which added nothing to the domain name, leaving the trade marked 'Red Bull' phrase as the main part of the name.
The man had claimed his was a protest site warning of the dangers of energy drinks but was found to be publishing a site at the address promoting a rival drink.
Carl Gamel of Kentucky in the US was found to have violated Red Bull's trade mark rights in registering the domain name redbullsucks.com and using it for commercial purposes.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)'s arbitration and mediation centre ruled on the domain under its uniform domain name dispute resolution policy (UDRP) which protects trade mark rights holders against bad faith users of domain names which are identical or confusingly similar to a trade mark.
The administrative panel in the case took Red Bull to task over its argument that the addition of 'sucks' to its trade mark was inherently confusing as to the origin of the domain name because 'sucks' was a generic term.
The panel rejected the argument that a user might think the domain name belonged to Red Bull because the term 'sucks' was so widely known as an insult, and therefore was a generic term which added nothing to the domain name, leaving the trade marked 'Red Bull' phrase as the main part of the name.
This article was contributed to ITproportal.com by http://www.OUT-LAW.com.
OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.
See: http://www.out-law.com for further details.
