The UDRP Blog™

In LEGO Juris A/S v. Whoisguard Protected, Whoisguard, Inc. / Giovanni Bonny , WIPO Case No. D2017-0143 (Peter Wild, March 15, 2017), the Panel ordered the transfer of chineselego.com to the owner of the famous LEGO trademark. This was a case I could not resist blogging about, as my life just changed for the better this past week when my son wandered into a LEGO store at a local mall. He thought he was forcing me to buy LEGO bricks, but I may have been more excited about his "discovery" than he was. And I am glad to see that my money-for-bricks is being used to quash counterfeit enterprises. Well done LEGO! Reading this decision was almost as enjoyable as building my son's first LEGO kit. There is some great language in the decision for brand owners. To start, the Panel noted the significance of the fact that Complainant not only owns the LEGO mark and corresponding lego.com domain, but also owns "a large number of similar domain names." It is always wise to...

Don't Mess With Texas!!!!....unless you are dealing with Texas International Property Associates. In a case where you knew the result upon seeing the Respondent's name, Messe Frankfurt GmbH v. Texas International Property Associates , WIPO Case No. D2008-0375 (Clive L. Elliott, April 29, 2008), the Panel required the transfer of messefrankfurtusa .com to the owner of the MESSE FRANKFURT mark. The case was no contest, as the Respondent notorious cybersquatter begged for mercy from the Panel by offering to voluntarily transfer the disputed domain name to the Complainant. When a Respondent consents to a transfer, a Panel has two options: "The Panel may find that in a circumstance such as this, where Respondent has unequivocally consented to the transfer of the disputed domain name, it should forgo the traditional UDRP analysis and order the immediate transfer of the domain name. The Panel may alternately find that the efficacy of such consent notwithstanding, there may nev...