Recently, we attended to a domain complaint for a client where various domain names incorporated the client's trade mark. These domain names led to websites that included photographs and images identical to those included on the client's website. All of the domain names included the client's trade mark followed by a country name with the various domains being used to target the specific country included as part of the domain name. The website content was translated into various local languages as appropriate.
To the average consumer, these websites looked exactly like that of the client's. Any consumer who would land on these webpages would reasonably believe that it was a legitimate website hosted by the client. In fact, the client was made aware of the existence of these websites by one of their customers who was misled and ordered products from one of these fake websites. Needless to say, the products never arrived.
When the client first contacted us, they had found five such websites. However, after running our own investigations, we located in excess of 30 domains names all resolving to similar, fraudulent websites. We were able to collate the required information and succeeded in having all of the domain names in question transferred to the client all through filing an individual, comprehensive domain complaint at The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This was all completed within a few months of the original dispute being filed.
Ensuring that you monitor use of your trade mark, including online use, is imperative. The actions mentioned above in relation to the client's trade mark could have caused substantial irreparable damage to the client's business, if we didn't take the action mentioned.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.