Gotta love words with secondary meaning.
The domain Golf.com.br, a Brazilian ccTLD, was lost in UDRP, after its owner tried to sell it for $100,000 dollars.
It’d be great to do so if the content at Golf.com.br were related to golf – the sport.
Unfortunately, the Complainant in this UDRP is the German automotive corporation Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft Wolfsburg.
VW Golf images on Google. Golf alone does not produce such photos.
Golf is a popular make of the giant VW, and in this case it became obvious that the Respondent was not targeting a golfing manufacturer, for example:
“In this case, e-mail messages submitted by claimants as correspondence with the Claimed lead to the conclusion that is set up the hypothesis of paragraph (a) of that paragraph, given that the value required by Claimed (US $ 100,000.00 ) denotes knowledge of the Complainant and the size of its economic group. The expert believes that the domain name registration in dispute was made with the claimants and their GOLF brand in mind and with the intention to sell it, rent it or transfer it to the Complainant or others.”
Does this mean that if you owned Apple.com you could not sell it to the computer and electronics manufacturer?
Let’s just say you’d be much safer to sell it to a producer of apples in California. 😉
Seeing all this, and taking into consideration international and Brazilian trademarks for GOLF owned by the Complainant, the sole panelist, Gilberto Martins de Almeidaor, ordered Golf.com.br to be transferred to them.
For the full text of the UDRP decision for Golf.com.br click here for a translated copy.
