HobbyLibby.com Domain Name Dispute: "Ice and Fire" Decisions on Domain Names of Famous American Stores

Recently, FORUM, a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) provider, released two decisions involving the famous American store Hobby Lobby. The results are very different and have attracted widespread attention in the industry.

In one of the UDRP cases, Hobby Lobby successfully won the domain name dispute against the registrant of HobbyLobbby.com (with an extra 'b'). However, in another dispute, a dramatic scene appeared. Hobby Lobby was found to have attempted to reverse hijack HobbyLibby.com, which was shocking.

From the domain names themselves, at first glance, both domain names are suspected of domain name squatting. HobbyLobbby.com has an extra letter 'b' compared to the original brand name, while HobbyLibby.com uses the letter 'i' instead of 'o'. Coincidentally, these two letters are in adjacent positions on the keyboard. And it is worth noting that in both cases, the domain name owners did not respond to the relevant disputes.

More importantly, this incident has brought up a controversial issue about trademark rights: Under what circumstances will misspellings of famous brands not infringe trademark rights?

In the case of HobbyLibby.com, the UDRP decision panel member said that when the misspelling is a word itself (such as "Libby"), different judgments on trademark rights disputes may occur, which undoubtedly brought a great impact to Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and its iconic HOBBY LOBBY trademark.

Panelists stated:

“The Panel does not believe so. ‘Libby’ is indeed a word. It is a common name, short for Elizabeth. It is a place name in Montana. It is the name of an online library.”

Not only did the panelists deny the complainant’s request to transfer the domain name, they also found it guilty of reverse domain hijacking:

“As previously stated, the complaint states that the domain name should be considered registered and used in bad faith because ‘Libby’ is not a word and the only reason the defendant registered hobbylibby.com was to sell the domain name registration to the complainant. The panel finds that the complainant must have known that both of these statements were false and that its complaint should fail. Therefore, the panel finds that the complaint was filed in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative process.”

Final Decision: The transfer of HobbyLibby.com is dismissed and the complainant is declared to be engaged in RDNH. The respondents did not respond, so they can continue to register famous trademarks.