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Complainant : NIKE INC and NIKE INNOVATIVE
Respondent : ZHAXIA
Disputed domain : Nike.co.in
Decision : The Complainant emerged as a decree holder.
Case summary and Analysis
In the following dispute the complainant owns exclusive rights to use “Nike” trademark and service mark and has used the same in connection with its highly successful and widely known lines of sports shoes, apparel and sports equipment since last 40 years. Complainant states that due to extensive use of the “nike” trademark they have achieved a status of being distinctive and famous. The complainant provides the net income for 2014 which exceeds 20 billion and has stated that the total expenditure cost for advertisement and promotion of the infringed trademark is nearly 34 billion from last 40 years. Then the complainant provides multiple number of trademarks associated with the term “Nike” which is registered in more than 160 countries. Then complainant alleges that the disputed domain infringes nine trademarks owned by the him and states that the disputed domain is identical and confusingly similar to the complainant’s trademarks. The complainant states that the domain registration was done in bad faith in order to earn undue profit by receiving traffic from users who believe that they are visiting the website associated with the complainant’s mark. Moreover complainant claims that the respondent was aware of the trademark registered by the complainant prior to registration of the domain due to the popularity of the infringed mark yet the respondent registered the disputed domain. Then complainant moves over to the third ground and alleges that the respondent has no right and legitimate interest in the subject of domain name. Plus the complainant states that the respondent is not commonly known by the registered domain and has registered more domains which infringes the rights of other well known companies like colgate.in, ubisoft.co.in etc which can be proved by mere whois search. The respondent didn’t file any reply in return hence the dispute was concluded in the favor of the complainant and the domain was ordered to be transferred to the complainant immediately. If you wish to read about this dispute in detail, click here.
Personal opinions.
This is a dispute where the respondent was extremely lucky where he got away without paying hefty damages, we can consider this as mercy from the complainant’s side. People often register such domains believing they can score good sales, but little do they know that they are not only branding themselves and the domain industry as cyber squatters but they are also playing with fire. There are no short cuts in any business, its better to earn and make profits without breaking any law than trying such unethical acts and being branded as a cyber squatter which sticks to your name forever.
