Hugo Boss was recently victorious in a domain name dispute against an individual, Irfan Butt, who had registered the domain hugoboss.site.
According to the World IP Review, upon discovering the registration of this domain by Butt, the fashion giant immediately took action by filing a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Hugo Boss, who registered the first international trademark for their fashion brand in 1987, stated that the registration of the aforementioned domain could lead to confusion for their customers in the marketplace due the name’s similarity. Furthermore, they claimed that Butt had registered the domain in bad faith and had no legitimate interest in the site.
The defendant did not respond to the complaint and a decision was made on 27th June by Wipo’s Arbitration and Mediation Centre to pass the domain over to Hugo Boss.
Ian Lowe, the panellist who made the decision, declared that the domain registered by Butt was identical to the trademarks owned by Hugo Boss and that he cannot believe that this individual could have registered the domain for a legitimate purpose.
Cybersquatting is becoming more and more frequent due to the ease in which generic top level domains can now be registered. Your company should constantly be looking out for potential cybersquatters. If you do come across someone using infringing your trademark with their domain name, you can file a complaint with the uniform domain-name dispute resolution (UDRP) run by ICANN.
In this increasingly digitalised world companies have to remain vigilant, like Hugo Boss, in order to protect their brands from infringement. By owning a trademark for your goods you would be able to enforce your trademark rights both on and offline giving your brand a greater level of protection as well as increasing its value.
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