Textron Aviation went after the domain BeechJet.com, claiming it clashed with their BEECHCRAFT brand. They argued the domain misled users, competed with their services, and was used in bad faith. Respondent’s counsel, Brett Lewis, pushed back hard.
The Respondent’s company has been using the domain for over a decade to offer flight training specifically for Beechjet 400 aircraft—a model Textron hasn’t actively marketed in years. The panel noted the name “Beechjet” was originally linked to Textron, but Textron had let its BEECHJET trademark lapse in 2020 and hadn’t shown current use of that specific brand.
The site at BeechJet.com clearly branded itself as “PRO TRAIN AVIATION” and didn’t misuse Textron’s BEECHCRAFT mark. Textron even worked with the Respondent in 2017, without raising any objections to the domain then.
The panel found the domain confusingly similar to BEECHCRAFT but didn’t see evidence of bad faith.
Final decision: Deny the transfer of the domain BeechJet.com to the Complainant.
Copyright © 2025 DomainGang.com · All Rights Reserved.Textron Aviation Inc. v. Jason Ceminsky / AP Aviation Services LLC
Claim Number: FA2505002157835
PARTIES
Complainant is Textron Aviation Inc. (“Complainant”), represented by Jeremiah A. Pastrick of Pastrick Law LLC, Indiana, USA. Respondent is Jason Ceminsky / AP Aviation Services LLC (“Respondent”), represented by Brett Lewis of Lewis & Lin LLC, New York, USA.
REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME
The domain name at issue is beechjet.com, registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC.
PANEL
The undersigned certifies that they have acted independently and impartially and to the best of their knowledge have no known conflict in serving as Panelist in this proceeding.
David S. Safran and David E. Sorkin as Panelists and Adam Taylor as Chair.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Complainant submitted a Complaint to Forum electronically on May 28, 2025; Forum received payment on May 28, 2025.
On May 29, 2025, GoDaddy.com, LLC confirmed by e-mail to Forum that the beechjet.com domain name is registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC and that Respondent is the current registrant of the name. GoDaddy.com, LLC has verified that Respondent is bound by the GoDaddy.com, LLC registration agreement and has thereby agreed to resolve domain disputes brought by third parties in accordance with ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy”).
On June 3, 2025, Forum served the Complaint and all Annexes, including a Written Notice of the Complaint, setting a deadline of June 23, 2025 by which Respondent could file a Response to the Complaint, via e-mail to all entities and persons listed on Respondent’s registration as technical, administrative, and billing contacts, and to postmaster@beechjet.com. Also on June 3, 2025, the Written Notice of the Complaint, notifying Respondent of the e-mail addresses served and the deadline for a Response, was transmitted to Respondent via post and fax, to all entities and persons listed on Respondent’s registration as technical, administrative and billing contacts.
A timely Response was received and determined to be complete on June 23, 2025.
On July 1, 2025, pursuant to Respondent’s request to have the dispute decided by a three-member Panel, Forum appointed David S. Safran and David E. Sorkin as Panelists and Adam Taylor as Chair.
Having reviewed the communications records, the Administrative Panel (the “Panel”) finds that Forum has discharged its responsibility under Paragraph 2(a) of the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”) “to employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice to Respondent” through submission of Electronic and Written Notices, as defined in Rule 1 and Rule 2.
RELIEF SOUGHT
Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from Respondent to Complainant.
PARTIES’ CONTENTIONS
A. Complainant
Complainant contends that it has rights in the BEECHCRAFT mark based upon registration of its mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) and that the disputed domain name, which consists of an abbreviation of the trademark plus a descriptive term, is confusingly similar to the mark.
Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. Complainant never authorized Respondent to use, or to register a domain name incorporating, Complainant’s mark. Respondent has not used the disputed domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services as the disputed domain name falsely suggests affiliation with the trademark owner and capitalizes on the BEECHCRAFT brand, and it has been used to compete with Complainant’s own services. The principles in Oki Data Americas, Inc. v. ASD, Inc., WIPO Case No. D2001-0903 (“the Oki Data Principles”) are either inapplicable, because Respondent is unauthorized, or do not assist Respondent because Respondent is using the website to offer training on third party products and Respondent’s site fails to accurately disclose Respondent’s relationship with Complainant.
Respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith. Respondent registered the disputed domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor. Respondent has used the disputed domain name to create a likelihood of confusion with Complainant’s mark for commercial gain. Respondent was plainly aware of Complainant’s BEECHCRAFT mark, which predates the disputed domain name by almost a century. Respondent has used Complainant’s mark as an inducement to Internet users in connection with the supply of services that compete with Complainant.
B. Respondent
Respondent contends that Complainant has discontinued use of the BEECHJET mark and that the disputed domain name is neither identical nor confusingly to Complainant’s BEECHCRAFT mark, because the substitution of “jet” for “craft” constitutes a material difference.
Respondent possesses rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. Respondent, which is a leading aircraft training provider, has used the disputed domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of services for some 12 years before notice of the dispute. Respondent selected the disputed domain name because it reflected the name of the product – discontinued for some 10 years – for which Respondent offered services, and not to exploit any Complainant trademark. The disputed domain name does not include the BEECHCRAFT mark allegedly targeted by Respondent. In any case, Respondent possesses legitimate interests under the Oki Data Principles in that: Respondent is offering services relating to “Beechjet”; Respondent is not selling any of Complainant’s goods, merely providing a service ancillary to Complainant’s goods; Respondent’s website is clearly branded with Respondent’s name and does not suggest false affiliation; and Respondent has not set out to “corner the market”.
Respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in good faith to target the aircraft at the center of its training business, and not to target Complainant’s mark, to which Respondent’s service is in any event complementary. Complainant’s lengthy period of inaction, and lack of protest after becoming aware of Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name in 2017, further indicates a lack of bad faith use by Respondent, which expended significant effort and resources in reliance on the stability of the disputed domain name.
FINDINGS
Complainant is part of the Textron aviation group, which has produced light aircraft branded BEECHCRAFT since the 1930s.
Between around 1985 and 2003, Complainant produced the “Beechjet 400”, which later evolved into the Hawker 400, and was remanufactured by a third party as the “Nextant 400”.
Complainant owns various registered trademarks for BEECHCRAFT, including Reg. No. 759,556, registered with the USPTO on November 5, 1963.
Since around 2018, Complainant has provided training services for the Beechjet 400.
A trademark for BEECHJET, Reg. No. 1,446,279, registered with the USPTO on July 7, 1987, that had been owned by another company in Complainant’s group, lapsed on March 27, 2020.
Respondent is a flight‑training company. It and its predecessors have provided instruction for the Beechjet 400 and Hawker 400 since 1998. Respondent also provides training for the Nextant 400.
Respondent acquired the disputed domain name on June 30, 2013.
In 2017, Complainant invited Respondent to provide training for certain customers. Respondent’s communications to Complainant included use of “beechjet.com” in an email signature and invoice header.
Respondent’s subsidiary purchased a Beechjet 400 in 2022.
As of May 21, 2025, the disputed domain name resolved to a website branded “PRO TRAIN AVIATION”. The homepage comprised a list of courses including the following:
– “Beechjet 400/400A. We cover the original Beechjet 400… and the Beechjet 400A…”
– “Hawker 400XP/400XPR… It’s the follow-on to the 400A…”
– “The Nextant 400ST STC remanufactures the 400A and 400XP into a modern master…”
DISCUSSION
Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to “decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted and in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable.”
Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:
(1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and
(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
Identical and/or Confusingly Similar
Since Complainant has provided evidence of registration of the BEECHCRAFT mark with the USPTO, the Panel finds that Complainant has rights in that mark under Policy ¶ 4(a)(i).
The first element functions primarily as a standing/threshold requirement. The test for confusing similarity involves a reasoned but relatively straightforward comparison between the complainant’s trademark and the disputed domain name. Where a domain name incorporates the entirety of a trademark, or at least a dominant feature of the relevant mark is recognizable in the disputed domain name, it will normally be considered confusingly similar to that mark for purposes of UDRP standing. See WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0 at ¶ 1.7.
In this case, a dominant feature of the relevant mark, namely the term “beech” is recognizable in the disputed domain name.
Therefore, the Panel finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to Complainant’s BEECHCRAFT mark under Policy ¶ 4(a)(i).
Rights or Legitimate Interests
It is unnecessary for the Panel to consider this element in view of the Panel’s conclusion under the third element below.
Registration and Use in Bad Faith
First, the Panel notes that Complainant claims no rights in the BEECHJET mark. Nor has Complainant provided any evidence of Complainant’s use of that mark as of 2013, when Respondent acquired the disputed domain name, or indeed at any time after Beechjet aircraft went out of production in 2003. Furthermore, Respondent has produced evidence that another company in Complainant’s group allowed the BEECHJET registered trade mark to lapse in 2020.
Complainant focuses its case on Respondent’s alleged targeting of Complainant’s BEECHCRAFT mark.
However, while the name “Beechjet” was no doubt originally derived from Complainant’s BEECHCRAFT mark, it does not follow, as Complainant maintains, that Respondent’s motive in registering the disputed domain name was to somehow target BEECHCRAFT via the “beech” component of Beechjet. The far more obvious explanation put forward by Respondent, and accepted by the Panel, is that Respondent registered and used the disputed domain name because the term as a whole comprised the name of the principal aircraft for which Respondent supplies training services, namely Beechjet, a term that Complainant had ceased actively using as a trademark a decade earlier.
Furthermore, Complainant has produced no evidence indicating that Respondent at any point set out to target the BEECHCRAFT mark. Respondent’s website, is prominently branded with Respondent’s own name, and there is no indication of any illicit use of the BEECHCRAFT mark.
Complainant asserts that it also provides training services for Beechjet aircraft and is therefore a competitor of Respondent. However, not only do such services post-date the disputed domain name by some five years, the Panel considers that they are in any event irrelevant in the circumstances of this case given the lack of any claim/evidence by Complainant that it has provided any such services by reference to a trademark for BEECHJET, rather than BEECHCRAFT.
Complainant relies on the fact that Respondent also provides training on the Nextant 400, which the Panel understands is a Beechjet that has been remanufactured by a third party. Again, the Panel does not consider this relevant given that the disputed domain name denotes “Beechjet”, not BEECHCRAFT. Respondent uses “Beechjet” to refer to Beechjet 400 series aircraft including remanufactured versions, and in any event, it appears that the Nextant 400 training is incidental to Respondent’s main service, namely training on Beechjet.
In support of its case, Complainant quotes extensively from Textron Innovations Inc. v. Nicole Delger / Nicole Delger Communications, FA 2409002115783 (Forum Oct. 21, 2024 ), where Complainant’s group established that the domain name thekingairexpert.com had been registered and used in bad faith by an aircraft dealer. However, the facts of that case are materially different to those here; in particular because the relevant mark had not fallen out of use.
The Panel also notes that Complainant’s group lost a recent case against another flight training business concerning the domain names hiobeech.com and bayareabeech.com. See Textron Innovations Inc. v. Mike Brannigan / Dquery.io,: FA 2404002095240 (Forum Jun. 2, 2024). In connection with the third element, the panel stated:
“The evidence demonstrates that Respondent has not used the disputed domain names to compete with Complainant, to disrupt the business of Complainant, or to illegitimately capitalize on any consumer confusion. To the contrary, there is no evidence of any consumer confusion…”.
In the Panel’s view, this statement broadly applies here also.
The Panel also notes that Complainant approached Respondent to provide training to some of its customers in 2017, and that Complainant apparently raised no objection to Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name, which was mentioned in Respondent’s communications at the time. While panels have declined to specifically adopt concepts such as laches or its equivalent in UDRP cases (see WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0 at ¶ 4.17), the Panel nonetheless considers that Complainant’s failure to object to the disputed domain name until it filed this Complaint some eight years later is at least an indicator of a previous lack of concern on the part of Complainant regarding Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name.
For all the above reasons, the Panel concludes that Complainant has failed to establish that Respondent has registered, and is using, the disputed domain name in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii).
DECISION
Having not established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be DENIED.
Accordingly, it is Ordered that the beechjet.com domain name REMAIN WITH Respondent.
Adam Taylor, Chair
David S. Safran, Panelist
David E. Sorkin, Panelist
Dated: July 9, 2025
