Jimmy Choo wins cybersquatting case

Fashion brand Jimmy Choo has won a cybersquatting dispute at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) after two domain names containing its trademark were found to have been registered in bad faith.

Jimmy Choo filed a complaint against the registration of the domains jimmy--choo.org and jimmychooutletsale.org.

Both were registered by an individual referred to as panluzhong, a Chinese resident, and were registered with domain name registrar 1API.

Jimmy Choo filed its complaint at WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center on February 10 and the decision was published on Tuesday, March 29.

In the complaint, it said the disputed domains incorporate its registered trademark for ‘Jimmy Choo’ with only “slight and insignificant modifications” and that the websites attached to the domains sold similar goods to Jimmy Choo, including women’s and men’s clothing.

In the decision, panellist William Hamilton said the disputed domain names were “confusingly similar”.

“The addition of hyphens between ‘jimmy’ and ‘choo’, the addition of the characters ‘utletsale’ as a suffix, and omitting the space character between ‘jimmy’ and ‘choo’ are immaterial for the purposes of a finding of a likelihood of confusion,” he wrote.

Hamilton added that the respondent did not have a legitimate interest in the domains and that they had been registered in bad faith.

“The complainant’s mark is internationally renowned and the products sold on the respondent’s websites are similar to the complainant’s products and offered at a fraction of the price.

“No other conclusion can be derived from the evidence presented except that the respondent intended to trade on the complainant’s brand and reputation,” he concluded in the decision, handed down on March 20.

This was first published on  Trademarks and Brands Online.