CLASS 46
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WEDNESDAY, 26 AUGUST 2009
Municipality of St. Moritz finally obtains stmoritz.com
Tags: city names, geographic indication, Switzerland, UDRP,
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Municipality of St. Moritz finally obtains stmoritz.com
In 2000, a sole panelist rejected St. Moritz' application for transfer of stmoritz.com, primarily because there was evidence of bona fide use by the respondent (D2000-0617):
it appears that Respondent provides informational services about the city of St. Moritz and about Switzerland. Indeed, upon analysis of the web sites connected to the different domain names registered by Respondent or its "affiliated" company, Serenade Limited, it appears that Respondent has built a whole network of web sites providing information about subjects as various as different cities, countries, general news, net cafes, etc., which activity the Panel finds does qualify as a bona fide activity.
In 2004, a three member panel basically re-affirmed the original decision, stating that the intermittent changes to the website's content were insufficient to create bad faith (D2004-0158).
In November 2008, St. Moritz filed a civil action before the court in Chur, Grison, Switzerland, claiming infringement not only of trademark rights, but also of personality rights (rights in the name St. Moritz). The court held that because St. Moritz could rely on rights in the name St. Moritz, the content of the website accessible under the domain name stmoritz.com was irrelevant. In a judgment dated 4 May 2009, it ordered the transfer of the domain name to St. Moritz (more precisely the claimant, which was the tourism authority of St. Moritz).
Note that currently, the domain name stmoritz.com still resolves to the "old" website, as the judgment has not yet been enforced. The "official" website of St. Moritz is accesible under http://www.stmoritz.ch/.
Posted by: Mark Schweizer @ 14.40Tags: city names, geographic indication, Switzerland, UDRP,
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