A UDRP was filed against the domain Boku.net by Boku, Inc., the San-Francisco–based mobile payments company whose BOKU platform processes more than $9 billion in annual transactions.
The Complainant cited multiple US and foreign BOKU trademarks registered in 2011 and argued that the Respondent lacked any legitimate interest, pointing to a minimal holding page and alleged bad faith intent.
The Respondent, however, demonstrated that he registered boku.net in 1996, incorporated Boku, Inc. in Wisconsin the same year, and used the domain for years to promote consulting and internet services projects long before the Complainant existed. The Panel found this timeline decisive: a domain name registered 15 years before the Complainant’s earliest trademark rights cannot, as a matter of logic or UDRP precedent, be considered a bad-faith registration.
The Panel noted that passive holding or criticism of the current website was irrelevant because the Policy requires proof of both bad-faith registration and bad-faith use. With the registration predating BOKU’s trademark rights by more than a decade, the Complaint necessarily failed on the third UDRP element.
Final decision: Complaint denied; the domain boku.net remains with the Respondent.
Copyright © 2025 DomainGang.com · All Rights Reserved.Boku, Inc. v. peter eisch / Afton’s Endeavors
Claim Number: FA2510002185839
PARTIES
Complainant is Boku, Inc. (“Complainant”), represented by Frederick Besant of Boku, Inc., California, USA. Respondent is peter eisch / Afton’s Endeavors (“Respondent”), Wisconsin, USA.
REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME
The domain name at issue is boku.net, registered with Tucows Domains Inc. (the “Disputed Domain Name”).
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.
Kendall C. Reed as Panelist.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Complainant submitted a Complaint to Forum electronically on October 29, 2025; Forum received payment on October 29, 2025.
On October 29, 2025, Tucows Domains Inc. confirmed by e-mail to Forum that the boku.net domain name is registered with Tucows Domains Inc. and that Respondent is the current registrant of the name. Tucows Domains Inc. has verified that Respondent is bound by the Tucows Domains Inc. 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 October 30, 2025, Forum served the Complaint and all Annexes, including a Written Notice of the Complaint, setting a deadline of November 19, 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@boku.net. Also on October 30, 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 November 10, 2025.
On November 10, 2025, pursuant to Complainant’s request to have the dispute decided by a single-member Panel, Forum appointed Kendall C. Reed as Panelist.
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, Boku, Inc., is a company with a global presence headquartered in San Francisco in the USA. The Complainant was founded in 2009 and currently provides one of the largest mobile payments network in the world. The Complainant has built a mobile payments network that combines carrier billing and mobile wallets into a single payments scheme, providing businesses with the capability to accept mobile payments from consumers. The Complainant’s mobile payments network features more than 200 mobile payment types in 90 countries worldwide. The Complainant processes more than $9 billion of payments per year and has more than 28 million active users monthly. Many of the most valuable companies in the world are live on the Complainant’s platform today, including Google, Sony, Spotify, Microsoft and Meta. Further information about the Complainant can be found on its website.
The Complaint is the proprietor of a number of United States trademark registrations for the word mark BOKU, which is highly distinctive, including US registration numbers 4042491 (Class 35 – billing commercial transactions), 4042492 (Class 36 – payment processing services), and 4056702 (Class 42 – software as a service for payment processing). The Complainant also owns a number of foreign registrations for the BOKU word mark.
Respondent’s domain name boku.net is identical or confusingly similar to the Complainant’s BOKU trademark.
Respondent does not have rights or legitimate interests in its domain name boku.net. The Respondent has not used the domain name in connection with the offering of goods or services and has made no demonstrable preparation to do so. The Respondent is not making any legitimate non-commercial or fair use of the domain name. This is evidenced by the fact that the URL of the Domain Name directs to a holding web page, which simply includes the word “boku.inc”, an image of the sea, and the slogan “Technology Realized Your Strategies, Alive”.
The Respondent is not a licensee of Boku, Inc. and has no authorization to use the BOKU mark. There is no evidence that the Respondent is commonly known by ‘Boku’ or has any legitimate business using that name. The use of a privacy service to conceal identity further supports the lack of rights or legitimate interests.
The Respondent registered and continues to hold the disputed domain name in bad faith. Boku’s trademark rights predate the registration and use of the domain name by many years. Given the distinctiveness of the BOKU mark and its worldwide reputation in the payments industry, the Respondent must have been aware of Complainant’s rights. The Respondent’s use of the domain name amounts to a single, non-distinctive, passive holding page that mentions the Complainant by name (the only text which appears on the page is “boku,inc Technology Realized Your Strategies, Alive”). The passive holding of the domain, combined with concealment of identity via a proxy service, constitutes bad faith use under UDRP precedent (e.g., Telstra v. Nuclear Marshmallows, WIPO D2000-0003). The domain’s retention interferes with Complainant’s ability to reflect its mark in a corresponding domain name.
B. Respondent
On June 3. 1996, Respondent registered Boku, Inc. as an S. Corporation with the state of Wisconsin. This registration has been maintained continuously since. Thereafter and also in 1996, Respondent registered the domain name boku.net with InterNIC.
Respondent’s first website was created in early 1997, and in the succeeding years Respondent created a strong local brand. Respondent’s various iterations of its website have included statements about its scope of services, products on offer, and listings of some of its customers.
Respondent operated its business for 10 years before the USPTO issued a registration for the trademark BOKU for purposes of transactional processing, which services did not conflict with Respondent’s activity with respect to boku.net.
Respondent’s operations continued unchanged until 2021, at which time Respondent’s services became less oriented at retail but instead continued as consulting and providing services and networks to its customers for general internet applications.
“If at any point the organization associated with boku.com is interested in purchasing the boku.net domain name an offer has already been tended reflecting the value of boku.net to boku, inc.”
FINDINGS
Respondent first registered the domain name boku.net on July 20, 1996, and has since maintained this registration.
Complaint first obtained two US Trademark registrations for BOKU on October 18, 2011.
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
Complainant has established the First Element of the Policy.
Complainant owns at least one US Registration for the trademark BOKU (the “Complainant’s Mark”). Registration of a trademark by a national trademark agency is generally considered as sufficient evidence of rights in a trademark for purposes of the fist element of the Policy. See WIPO Overview 3.0 (the “Overview”), § 1.2.1.
The Disputed Domain Name is identical to the Complainant’s Mark: boku.net is the same as BOKU. The TLD attached to the Disputed Domain Name does not create a meaningful distinction and is generally seen as being irrelevant for purposes of the first element of the Policy. See the Overview § 1.11.1.
Rights or Legitimate Interests
Because Complainant is required to establish all three elements of the Policy in order to succeed, and Complainant has failed to establish the third element, as noted below, it is not necessary for the Panel to analyze the second element of the Policy. See Dr. Sheba Roy v. Bullshit Rates, D2025-1960 (WIPO Aug. 6, 2025).
The Panel notes, however, that whereas the facts presented do not appear to fall within scope of any of the three specified circumstances of Policy ¶ 4(c), this does not, in itself, mean that Respondent’s use of the Disputed Domain Name is prohibited.
Registration and Use in Bad Faith
Complainant has failed to establish the third Element of the Policy.
The Disputed Domain Name was registered before Complainant acquired rights in the Complainant’s Mark. The Disputed Domain Name was initially registered on July 20, 1996, and Complainant first acquired rights in Complainant’s Mark on October 18, 2011. This state of affairs is inconsistent with a finding of bad faith because Complainant must demonstrate both registration and use of the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith. See Integrity Marketing Group, LLC v. Sunil Bheda, FA 204445 (Forum June 26, 2023) (“[A]s a simple matter of logic…a domain name registrant cannot, at the time a domain name is registered, intend to cyber squat on a trademark before the trademark exists.”). See Platterz v. Andrew Melcher, FA 1729887 (Forum June 19, 2017) (“Whatever the merits of Complaint’s argument that Respondent is using the Domain Name in bad faith, those arguments are irrelevant, as a complaint must prove both bad faith registration and bad faith use in order to prevail.”). See the Overview § 3.8.1: “[W]here a respondent registers a domain name before the complainant’s trademark rights accrue, panels will not normally find bad faith on the part of the respondent.”
Complainant argues that Respondent is passively holding the Disputed Domain Name in such a way as to warrant a finding of bad faith under Telestra Corporation Limited v. Nuclear Marshmallows, D2000-0003 (WIPO February 18, 2000). However, that decision is distinguishable and provides no guidance in the present matter because that decision did not involve a prior registered domain name.
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 boku.net domain name REMAIN WITH Respondent.
Kendall C. Reed, Panelist
Dated: November 19, 2025
