Going international with some gratuitous Dutch booty.
If you don’t get the Pitbull reference, no worries – here’s a link.
A Dutch company, Koninklijke KPN N.V. filed a UDRP at the WIPO, and they went after the domain name KPN.international – a first, as far as we’re aware of, in this new gTLD.
Typically, LLL domains receive some broader “love” from panelists, when a UDRP is filed, but in this case the Registrant’s motives are obvious: The Complainant operates both from the Dutch ccTLD, at KPN.nl and the international KPN.com.
According to the UDRP:
“The Complainant is the incumbent telecommunication service provider in the Netherlands, and owns registrations for the word mark KPN (the “Trademark”), including a Benelux trademark with registration number 0529431 of March 2, 1993, and a Community trademark with trademark number 0310099 of August 26, 2006 for goods and services in different classes, inter alia, relating to telecommunications.”
The Respondent, also a Dutch, did not formally respond; all that was left to the sole panelist, Alfred Meijboom, a Dutchman, was to deliver KPN.international to the Complainant, per the following findings:
“The Panel is of the opinion that this is a clear case of cybersquatting. The Trademark is well known in the Netherlands, where the Respondent apparently lives and operates his business, and the Respondent was doubtlessly aware of the Trademark when he registered the disputed domain name. The Respondent did, in fact, acknowledge his awareness of the Trademark in his e-mail of June 25, 2014. In this e-mail, which he explicitly sent on behalf of his Internet company Egogo, the Respondent also wrote that he was only prepared to transfer the disputed domain name to the Complainant upon payment of EUR 900 – which is most likely in excess of his out-of-pocket costs directly related to the disputed domain name (cf. paragraph 4(a) of the Policy) – and that, in the Panel’s translation of the Respondent’s e-mail, “the costs for UDRP proceedings, which are entirely for the complainant’s own expense, are higher than our proposal”. In view of his e-mail, and in absence of a response, the Panel finds that the Respondent acted in bad faith when he registered and used the disputed domain name.”
For the full text of the UDRP, click here.
The fact that the respondent was also dutch burned him:
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2008/d2008-0055.html
Kosta – It’s double dutch, both Respondent and Panelist. Also, the Respondent offered it for sale to the Complainant, and did not file a response.