UDRP was denied.
The UDRP for the valuable three letter .com domain, ETH.com has been denied.
The Complainant, ETH Zürich (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich) of Zurich, Switzerland filed the UDRP in March, alleging trademarks over the acronym going back to 2004.
The Respondent is a Brazilian company and part of a group known as Construtora Norberto Odebrecht (the “Odebrecht Group”) which operates internationally in a number of industrial areas.
The Disputed Domain Name was originally created on March 15, 2001. It is now used to redirect web traffic to a website of the Odebrecht Group.
Nick J. Gardner, sole panelist, did not accept the Complainant’s argument that the Disputed Domain Name is not being used, stating:
“The redirection of web traffic aimed at the Disputed Domain Name to another website is itself use – whether it is legitimate or not is a different issue.
In the present case the redirection following a change of corporate name to a website relating to the new corporate name seems entirely legitimate.”
Interestingly, the outcome of the UDRP for ETHZ.com – with an extra “Z” – was positive for the same Complainant, as we covered it in the past.
For the full text of this UDRP decision for ETH.com click here.
