Dymocks.com.au website.
When you operate a company going back to 1879, you’d better have a solid control of your brand and digital property assets.
In the case of Dymocks, a network of 59 franchised retail bookstores throughout Australia, they operate from Dymocks.com.au.
They also operated Dymocks.com from 1996 until sometime in 2015 when they apparently allowed the domain to lapse.
Oops! 😀
Some guy from China picked it up, and the domain was challenged via the UDRP process at the WIPO.
It’s not the first time that a claim of an accidental domain lapse by its former registrant leads to a UDRP, in order to reclaim it from the new registrant.
A three member panel at the WIPO found that the Complainant had a valid case:
“In the present circumstances, the distinctive nature of the Dymocks Trademarks, and the evidence as to the extent of the reputation the Complainant enjoys in the Dymocks Trademarks, and the identical nature of the Disputed Domain Name to the Dymocks Word Trademark, leads the Panel to conclude the registration and use was in bad faith.
The word “Dymocks” is not an ordinary English word. According to the Complainant’s evidence it is the name of the founder of the first Dymocks store. On the evidence before the Panel it has no discernible meaning other than in relation to the Complainant and its products and services.
The Respondents registered the Disputed Domain Name very shortly after the Complainant’s registration lapsed, and at that time any trademark or Internet based search would have easily disclosed Complainant’s trademark rights and long-established use of the word “Dymocks”.”
The domain was thus awarded to the Complainant.
For the full text of the UDRP decision about Dymocks.com, click here.
