The UDRP Blog™

In Calvin Klein Trademark Trust & Calvin Klein, Inc. v. Registration Private, Domains by Proxy, LLC / Carolina Rodrigues, Fundacion Comercio Electronico , WIPO Case No. D2018-2882 (James Bridgeman, January 27, 2019), the Panel transferred calivnklein.com to the owner of the famous CALVIN KLEIN trademark. If you just read the previous sentence and thought this was a straight up cybersquatter case, where the infringer registers a domain name corresponding with the exact trademark of a brand owner, look at the disputed domain again closely-- it is actually a classic example of typosquatting, whereby infringers capture domain traffic where an Internet user is seeking a particular brand owner but mistakenly mistypes the web address of such brand owner. This case is also a perfect example of how quickly an infringing domain can be recovered via a UDRP action filed with WIPO. In this instance, the infringer registered the disputed domain on December 10, 2018, Complainant filed its com...

In LegalZoom.com, Inc. v. Domain Admin, Whois Privacy Corp. / Maddisyn Fernandes , WIPO Case No. D2017-1894 (Alfred Meijboom, November 14, 2017), the Panel transferred the domain name zoomlegal.com to LegalZoom, the online provider of legal services, including trademark related services. LegalZoom, which boasts on its trademark services page of how it "knows the ropes," and tells its potential customers "[l]et's join forces in protecting your brand," chose itself to join forces with an outside law firm to protect its own brand. That fact, in and of itself, is the story here. More on that later. As for the merits of the case, this was about as routine as it gets in a UDRP dispute. The Respondent defaulted. LegalZoom demonstrated trademark rights in the mark LEGALZOOM and LEGALZOOM.COM. The disputed domain merely reverses the order of the words in the LEGALZOOM mark. According to the Panel, "[t]his reversal of two terms does not change the overall impress...