[Random-bits] UDRP --- catmachine.com and catmachines.com

[James Love]

Subject: UDRP --- catmachine.com and catmachines.com
   Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2000 09:35:10 -0400
   From: James Love <love@cptech.org>
 Organization: http://www.cptech.org
        To: NCDNHC <NCDNHC-Discuss@lyris.isoc.org>

In looking the UDRP decision giving Caterpillar the domain
catmachines.com, I discovered that a web graphic design firm (looks like
a good one), is using catmachine.com.   So WIPO took away
catmachines.com from someone on the basis that it is identical or
confusing similar to caterpillar.com or cat.com, and did not even notice
that catmachine.com is in a bona fide site for a web designer.  Maybe
the web designers using catmachine.com can bring a UDRP against
Caterpillar, claiming, with some justification, that catmachines.com is
confusingly similiar to catmachine.com.

  Jamie


James Love wrote:
> 
> http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/html/d2000-0275.html
> 
> Roam the Planet had registered catmachines.com.  Caterpillar was
> successful in taking catmachines.com away from Roam the Planet.
> According to the WIPO decision, Caterpillar had sales of $19 billion in
> 1999.  (Bulldozers and other products).  Caterpillar already had
> registered caterpillar.com and cat.com.  It claimed that "catmachines"
> was  "identical, or confusingly similar" to its trademark in caterpillar
> or cat.
> 
> Roam the Planet, apparently a seller of domain names, complained that
> Caterpillar was engaged in "Reverse domain highjacking."  Roam the
> Planet identified.
> 
>         "numerous legitimate domain uses" for a domain combining "cat" with
> "machines", such as CAT for Computer Aided Technologies, Cat (the
> animal) associated with machines (e.g. Littermaid), Category 5, CATscan,
> Center for Advanced Technology (CAT), Computed Axial Tomography
> (C.A.T.), Covert Action Teams (C.A.T.) and Catalog (abbreviation).
> 
> 
> Apparently underminning its case was the fact that Roam the Planet had
> tried to sell catmachines.com to Caterpillar for $9,000.
> 
> WIPO transfered catmachines.com to Caterpillar.
> 
> Possible NCC language.
> 
> 1.  catmachines.com is not "identical or confusingly similiar" to
> caterpillar.
> 
> 2.  (suggestions welcome)
> 
> =======================================================
> James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
> Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org
> P.O. Box 19367                 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
> Washington, DC 20036           | fax:   1.202.234.5176
> =======================================================

-- 
=======================================================
James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org 
P.O. Box 19367                 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
Washington, DC 20036           | fax:   1.202.234.5176
=======================================================