Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.
Founded in 2005, Payoneer operates form the domain name Payoneer.com and is very protective of its brand and matching trademark, PAYONEER.
Since 2019, Payoneer has filed 16 UDRP cases at the WIPO, winning all of them. These cases involved 19 domains in total:
payoneers.com
ipayoneer.com
payoneer.vip
payoneer.top
payoneer.app
payoneer.com.br
payoneer.cards
payoneer.co
payoneer.com.mx
payoneer.com.ua
payoneer.help
payoneer.club
payoneerchina.cn
chinapayoneer.cn
payoneer.nl
payoneer.eu
payoneer.com.cn
payoneer.net
payoneerloans.com
The latest UDRP involved the domains Payoneers.com and iPayoneer.com and unlike the other cases, the Respondent attempted to hold onto the domains, by retaining an attorney and filing a response. That response made some radical claims:
In their Response, the Respondents essentially contend that the disputed domain names are not confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademarks, since the Complainant would only have trademark rights in a stylized mark. As to the second element test, the Respondents essentially argue that they have rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain names based on their legal purchase and registration of the disputed domain names and provide evidence of such purchase and registration.
The Respondents also contend that they have been making a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the disputed domain names, without intent for commercial gain misleadingly to divert consumers or to tarnish the trademark or service mark at issue. As to the third element test, the Respondents essentially argue that they did not register or use the disputed domain names in bad faith, that they did not attempt to sell the disputed domain names in excess of the documented costs and that there is no pattern of bad faith conduct. The Respondents also particularly argue that the Complainant fails to provide evidence of the reputation of its trademarks in relation to China where the Respondent resides.
The WIPO panelist disagreed, sending them packing and ordering the domains to be transferred to the Complainant.
