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FIRST IDN DISPUTES START TO EMERGE
27th November, 2003
The first disputes relating to Internationalised Domain Names - ones which allow web users to register domain with non-Latin characters - have started to emerge with Chinese film company Golden Harvest winning a dispute over a domain made up of the Chinese characters corresponding to its name.
The dispute was brought by Golden Harvest after the registrant - an alleged domain speculator - bought the domain GoldenHarvest.com as represented in both traditional and simplified Chinese character sets. During 2001, the Respondent contacted Golden Harvest to try and broker a deal to sell the domains to the film company for $30,000 USD.
The Complainant, however, argued that as they had been using "Golden Harvest" since it was featured in their 1970 film "The Angry River" they had developed considerable goodwill in the name and that the registrant had bought the domains to profit from this goodwill.
Concluding that the domains had been registered in bad faith and finding in Golden Harvest's favour, the panellist commented:
…the Respondent obviously registered the disputed domain names primarily for the purpose of selling to the Complainants or to a competitor of the Complainants, for valuable consideration in excess of the Respondent's documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain names.
More details at: http://www.demys.net/news/2003/11/27_golden.htm
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