Earlier this month, I wrote about this pending complaint between two competing Air Charter Service companies. The Complainant had the singular domain, and wanted the plural from the Respondent.
In part I said:
“I would have thought that this auDRP could be easily defended given that the respondent is engaged in providing “air charter services”. That is very much a generic description”.
And so it was. The Complaint was denied.
Full decision of the Sole Panelist Warwick A. Rothnie here.
This is the “money quote” from the decision (in my opinion):
“the Panel does not consider it appropriate to find that the Complainant has discharged its burden to establish the Respondent does not have rights or a legitimate interest in the disputed domain name”.
Generic means Generic. In Trademarks and in Domain Names.
Having trademarks also which may include generic words is increasingly useless in domain name disputes and when trademarks are challenged.
It also may lead to revocation and removal of the claimed exclusive trademarks if challenged.
This stupid complaint should never have been lodged and was a total abuse of process.
The Complainants and their lawyers should be called out and embarrassed for lodging it and losing. What did they achieve… well I suppose the lawyers made money so they may not care if they lost for their paying client? The losing Complainant is Air Charter Service (Aust) Pty Ltd., Australia, represented by the losing Holman Webb Lawyers, Australia.
The winning Respondent ( who defended their rights but had to waste their money and time) is actually part of Flight Centre.
Registrant: AVMIN PTY LTD
Registrant ID: ABN 57153297824
Eligibility Type: Company
https://www.avmin.com.au/about-us
As Australia’s leader in charter aircraft solutions, AVMIN offers the only true charter concierge service. With a global database of partner operators, AVMIN can land you or your passengers at any airport in the world.
AVMIN is owned by one of the largest travel agencies in the world, the Flight Centre Travel Group.
The services we can provide range from supplying small & large turboprop aircraft, helicopters, corporate jets, emergency equipped medevac aircraft, freight aircraft and even commercial sized airliners.
Common sense prevails yet again.