German professor wins battle for unpronounceable name

A German university professor has won the battle to gain ownership of his own last name – both as the .com and the .de – after a quick and dirty WIPO decision, which concluded that he has full rights to the pair of domain names due to their uniqueness.

Dr. Hermann Schullevermonrhankstein – professor of anthropology at the University of Koln, Germany – had recently created his own Facebook profile when several of his students pointed out that his last name already existed on the Internet.

“We visited Dr. Hermann’s page and there was a picture of a nude woman eating chocolate, dressed in nazi boots”, said Olga Haller, one of the professor’s students. “In Germany, thank God, nazi symbols are illegal. That was bad move by some person. These boots have been out of fashion for years!”, she added smiling by her own twisted humor.

Eventually, Dr. Schullevermonrhankstein contacted the authorities who advised him to file a UDRP against the registrant of Schullevermonrhankstein.com and Schullevermonrhankstein.de ; the single member WIPO panel found that the professor had full rights to the domain, according to the following excerpt from the decision:

“… evident that such an unpronounceable name cannot be registered by accident, but rather, as a method to tarnish the professional image of the Complainant who is unfortunate not having changed his name to something less unique. “

The Respondent, a Klaus Schmidt from Hamburg, Germany did not file a response. Both domains were transferred to Dr. Schullevermonrhankstein with a note to pay more attention to technology trends in the future. Dr. Schullevermonrhankstein barely uses the Internet and believes that Oktoberfest is the ultimate networking event for Germans.

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