Chanel, Others Win Cybersquatting Cases

G E N E V A, Oct. 4 -- Fashion house Chanel, Reutersnews service and Britishauthor Helen Fielding, creator of Bridget Jones, have all woncybersquatting cases, a United Nations agency said on Tuesday.

Independent arbitrators appointed by the World IntellectualProperty Organization (WIPO) issued decisions ordering contestedInternet site names transferred to the three complainants.

WIPO, the U.N. agency that protects trademarks andcopyrights, has received more than 1,300 cases of disputeddomain names since starting its fast-track arbitration systemlast December. Decisions have been made in more than half of thecases, with 80 percent of complainants winning back the right totheir name.

Chanel, which says more than 2,500 outlets in the UnitedStates offer its products, filed the complaint against EstcoTechnology Group, based in Bethesda, Md. Estco, which saidit planned an Internet directory for designer fashion retailers,was the first to register the domain names chanelstore.com andchanelfashion.com last year.

But a panel of three arbitrators ruled that these were“confusingly similar” to the famous Chanel trademark.

“The panel finds the respondent is in bad faithbecause … the respondent is deliberately using complainant’sfamous trademarks with the aim of misleading the public andsiphoning off the ‘Chanel’ trademark’s accumulated good will forprofit,” it said.

Reuters Wins 6 Names

Since 1998, Reuters has offered mobile data services underthe mark Reuters Mobile, which provides customers with remoteaccess to real-time information and news via the Internet.

It filed a complaint against Teletrust IPR Ltd, based inZoug, Switzerland, which registered the six contested domainnames (mobilereuters.com, mobilereuters.net, mobilereuters.org,reutersmobile.com, reutersmobile.net and reutersmobile.org) inDecember 1999.

The panel accused Teletrust of seeking to attract traffic toits own Web sites and services by improper use of a famous mark,adding that it was “attempting to generate commercial gain bycreating confusion.”