A Spanish man registered googles.eu, used it for a web page where a search feature was available, with this disclaimer "This website does not have affiliation or relation with Google Inc. all the results are property of Google Inc. (1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain Vew CA 94043, the USA)". Everyone used to domain name lawsuits knows what would happen next...
But Google lost its ADR case! A .eu name is only available to European companies or individuals.* The complainant in case 4113 was Google Ireland. The holder of the Community trade mark is Google Inc. The complainant said it represented the US company.
Because the complainant did not bring any evidence that it was entitled to claim this name (such as a license), the panelist ruled that it failed to demonstrate its right on the name.
[Personal note: I usually do not comment .eu ADR cases, but my opinion on such an issue is known, since I have ruled that EC Regulation 874/2004 article 22 does not bar a non trademark holder to act in the name of another person, as it states: "An ADR procedure may be initiated by ANY party" (emphasis added). The case was 1047 - festool.eu (§ 5.1.1. to 5.1.5; See also 596 - restaurants.eu)]
* "undertaking having its registered office, central administration or principal place of business within the Community, or organisation established within the Community without prejudice to the application of national law, or natural person resident within the Community"
5 comments:
I will not pay for my .eu domain any more. EURid will destroy this domains. I thinked that google.eu will be search engine for all European such google.com for America. Not google loose in ADR but EURid.
It's about googles.eu, not google.eu.
Google does not have any TM over googles...and cannot consider to be a typo of google cause the googles.com exists for a long time and is a different type of biz.
gogole.me is for sale !
http://sedo.com/search/details.php4?domain=gogole.me
Good Job ! :)
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