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Originally Posted by radioz The bad thing is that there is no precedent set by a WIPO ruling. I (me, myself, and I) fought one regarding a generic .BIZ name that was in large part much the same is scope. It was a wider, if you will, term with multiple generic uses and the complaintents TM didn't cover but a portion of the possible uses plus there were other TM holders. While researching this matter, I came upon the cases for 'Realtor.biz' and Realtors.biz' that were ruled on by different groups of judges. The respondent (likely the same person/domainer) did not reply to either complaint but Realtor.biz was taken back while Realtors.biz was retained with the judges reaching very different conclusions in the two cases.
In my case, I won. In the process, I too changed the parked landing page to eliminate the complaintents products before the ruling and noted this in my arguments. I suspect that Mr. Schilling's case may have been ruled upon very differently if the 'right' group of judges had heard it. While it is difficult to know which judges to ask for, I did look at their past rulings and also any noted hobbies or activities that may indicate flexibility rather than rigidity. That's a hard thing to discern, of course, and it should matter a lot less than it does. |
Jon - What an interesting find. Just read the 2003 WIPO case and this is quite significant for domainers who are tyrying to protect their generic domains.
The National Association of Realtors
Lost the case against respondent for the domain:
Realtors.biz
This merits becoming a separate thread on its own as a number of people have discussed and debated "over-reaching" by the Assoc. of Realtors as a result of their repeated attempts at stripping domainers of any name with "Realtor" in it. They have even denied
Realtors themselves from registering and using geo domains with the word "realtor" in them.
I was not aware of the case you cited. Glad you pointed it out.