#246 - halloweencity.ca - TRANSFER GRANTED

The Complaint sells party supplies using the trademark HALLOWEEN CITY and the domain names and web sites halloweencity.com and halloweencitycanada.com. The domain at issue is halloweencity.ca.

 The Complainant registered the trademark HALLOWEEN CITY on 31 October 2013, but had been using the Trade-mark, unregistered, for many decades. The Panel found that, since the Domain Name is effectively identical to the trademark it was clearly “confusingly similar” to the Complainant’s Trade-mark.

The Registrant initially offered the domain name for sale to the Complainant for US$30,000. The Panel found that offering the Domain Name for sale had long been considered a clear indicium of bath faith. Furthermore, the Panel found that no use was being made of the Domain Name, and was not the name or surname of the Registrant and the Domain Name, and was not linked geographically to any place of business meaning that the Complainant had met its burden of showing that there was some evidence that the Registrant had no legitimate interest in the Domain. The Panelist ordered the transfer of the Domain Name to the Complainant.

You can read the decision here. 

#245 - party-city.ca and partycitycanada.ca - TRANSFER GRANTED

The Complainant is a maker and seller of party supplies that operates the websites partycity.com and partycity.ca. The disputed domain names are party-city.ca and partycitycanada.ca.  Both Domain Names redirected to web sites operated by the Registrant that sell party supplies and stationery.  The Complainant registered its trade-mark PARTY CITY in Canada in 1995. The Registrant argued that the Complaint`s Trade-mark was a “commonly used generic expression available to everyone”.

The Panel found that the Domain Names were likely to be confusing because they consisted of the entire mark PARTY CITY with either a hyphen or the term Canada added which did not dispel any confusion. The Panel found the Registrant had no legitimate interest in the Domain Names and rejected the argument that the Domain Names were generic because the Trade-mark was registrable and therefore not clearly descriptive.

Regarding bad faith, the Complaint pointed out that the Registrant advertised that the Domain Names were for “sale, business expansion, partnerships, hosting and networking within the industry.” The panel found that a desire to sell these Domain Names for profit is an indicium of bad faith.  Furthermore the Panel found that the Registrant presumably had registered the domain name "party-city.ca" because the more obvious version "partycity.ca" was already registered meaning the Registrant must have known of the Complainant at the time of registering the domain.

You can read the decision here.