In LEGO Juris A/S v. Registration Private, Domains By Proxy, LLC / Carolina Rodrigues, Fundacion Comercio Electronico , WIPO Case No. D2019-0248 (Shwetasree Majumder, April 16, 2019), LEGO, one of the most active complainants in UDRP cases filed at WIPO, sought to recover the domain wwwthelegostore.com from a purported typosquatter. A domain leading with "www" is designed to capture the attention of Internet users who are trying to seek a particular website, but mistakenly omit the period after the "www" portion of the web address. Such domain registrations constitute "typosquatting," a form of domain infringement designed to capture "typing" mistakes by Internet users. In this case, Respondent failed to enter an appearance to defend itself from the claims of typosquatting, but under WIPO's guidelines, judgment by default is not simply entered in favor of a complainant. Rather, "Complainant must still establish each of the three el
It's no secret that to win a UDRP claim, you almost always need to have trademark rights prior to a disputed domain registration
In SecretLab SG Pte Ltd v. Jason Bright, Secret Lab LLC , WIPO Case No. D2018-2807 (Clive L. Elliott, February 7, 2019), the Panel refused to transfer the disputed domains secretlab.com and thesecretlab.com to the owner of several registrations for the mark SECRETLAB. It is not often that a UDRP Complainant has its complaint denied, but the facts in this case did not favor a transfer and Respondent lawyered-up to mount a vigorous defense against Complainant's claims. Looking at the three elements of a UDRP claim, the Panel first examined whether the disputed domains were identical or confusingly similar to a mark owned by Complainant. As Complainant owned several registrations consisting of the term SECRETLAB, the Panel found the requisite similarity between the disputed domains and Complainant's registered trademark. Things started to go south for Complainant, however, once the Panel turned its attention to the second element of a UDRP claim, namely, whether Respondent h