Site owner successfully argued that “love cam” is a common descriptive term.
TMD Swiss AG, which operates an adult video cam site at xlovecam .com, has been found guilty of trying to reverse domain name hijack lovecam .com (pdf).
ICF Technology Inc. operates the lovecam .com site. It acquired the domain name in 2013, which was after the Complainant obtained a European trademark registration for xlovecam.
However, the domain owner noted that “love cam” is a descriptive term used in the online adult entertainment industry.
The three-person World Intellectual Property Organization found that ICF Technology has rights or legitimate interests in the domain name because it was genuinely using the domain based on its descriptive meaning and not targeting the Complainant.
It went a step further by finding reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH).
In finding RDNH, the panel took issue with the complaint’s “barest of allegations consisting essentially of three substantive paragraphs, the WhoIs record of the disputed domain name, evidence of the Complainant’s EUTM, the Policy, and a print-out of Fabulous.com’s terms of service.” It also took issue with the Complainant’s failure to address the descriptive nature of the term “love cam.”
The panel noted that the Respondent pointed out the deficiencies in the Complainant’s argument via communication before the case was filed.
The WIPO panel noted:
In the present case, the Respondent’s longstanding registration has been put at risk and the Respondent has been put to considerable trouble and, presumably, expense to defend that registration by the filing of a most basic Complaint.
Merk-Echt B.V. represented the Complainant, and Paul Keating, Esq., represented the domain name owner.
Post link: Adult cam site dispute results in reverse domain name hijacking finding
© DomainNameWire.com 2023. This is copyrighted content. Domain Name Wire full-text RSS feeds are made available for personal use only, and may not be published on any site without permission. If you see this message on a website, contact editor (at) domainnamewire.com. Latest domain news at DNW.com: Domain Name Wire.
