Dot .Car domains carry a premium price, and the Chinese registrant of Porsche.Car just blew a small fortune.
Registered in 2016, the Porsche car domain was renewed in 2017, which brings the total minimum cost to just over $5,000 dollars.
With a price tag of $2,399 dollars at GoDaddy, the domain was challenged by the nominal trademark holders, Porsche AG of Stuttgart, Germany.
Producing the Porsche car for more than 70 years, the Complainant stated the obvious:
“The Complainant has produced sports cars for more than 70 years, using the term “Porsche” as the prominent and distinctive part of its trade name. The Complainant’s trade name “Porsche” and PORSCHE mark are known, and have a favourable reputation, around the world.
The Complainant is the owner of multiple trademark registrations in several jurisdictions, including in the United States, for the mark PORSCHE.”
It appears that the registrant of Porsche.car held onto it, in hopes that the German giant would pay “ransom” to get its brand.
The Respondent’s intention and demonstration of bad faith was obvious:
While the Top-Level Domain “.car” is typically disregarded under the first element confusing similarity test, this Panel finds that it increases the likelihood of confusion regarding the Complainant’s association with the disputed domain name, given that the Complainant’s business is making Porsche cars. Previous panels have consistently held that a disputed domain name that consists merely of a complainant’s trademark and an additional term that closely relates to and describes that complainant’s business is confusingly similar to that complainant’s trademarks.
Cherise Valles, sole panelist, ordered the domain Porsche.Car to be transferred to the Complainant, who has plenty of cash to pay the renewal fees.
For the full text of this UDRP decision, click here.
