Actress Halle Berry gets the matching .com domain in a grand-slam UDRP

Halle Berry - Photo attribution: Gage Skidmore.

Halle Berry – Photo attribution: Gage Skidmore.

Actress Halle Berry, is famous around the world; in the 1980s she won beauty pageants. Eventually, she became an actress, but she’s also an entrepreneur.

After forming the corporation Bellah Brands Incorporated, the company became the owner of a USA registered trademark for the word mark HALLE BERRY, registered on September 1, 1999 in several international classes.

The domain HalleBerry.com was registered in 1997, according to DomainTools.

According to a UDRP filed at the WIPO, the Complainant, Bellah Brands Incorporated of Los Angeles, California, claims common law trademark rights in the name HALLE BERRY by virtue of Ms. Berry’s worldwide fame as an actress and celebrity.

The UDRP states the following:

“The disputed domain name was created on May 24, 1997. The Respondent is a prolific registrant of domain names consisting of the names of celebrities and has previously been involved in numerous cases under the Policy in which the transfer of the various domain names at issue was ordered to the respective complainant.

The Complainants note that from at least as early as 1999 until approximately January 1, 2006, the disputed domain name redirected to the Respondent’s “Celebrity 1000” website, which the Complainants say features advertising and a wide variety of information about other celebrities but without specific ties to Ms. Berry. The Complainants believe that between around May 2006 to around February 2009, the website associated with the disputed domain name stated that it was a Halle Berry fan site but had no information related to Ms. Berry and was instead comprised of click-through sponsored links directed to other websites unrelated to Ms. Berry. At present, the disputed domain name is parked with no content. It has shown either an “HTTP 403” or “HTTP 404″ message since April 2013.”

The Respondent failed to submit a response in this UDRP.

With all that in mind, the sole panelist, Andrew D. S. Lothian, ordered that the domain HalleBerry.com should be transferred to the Complainant.

For the full text of the UDRP, click here.

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