American Honda Motorcycle Company Domain Name Dispute

Recently, American Honda Motorcycle Company filed a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to obtain the newly registered domain name Hondae.com.

It is understood that the well-known HONDA trademark constitutes the majority of the keywords of the domain name. However, the defendant tried to present another reality. The respondent claimed to have conducted a "strategic search" for tourist destinations and found that an area in Seoul, South Korea called Hongdae ("Hong Dae" in English resources) was transliterated as "Hondae" in some posts posted on the Reddit.com website. As a result, the respondent added the "hongdae" and "hondae" translations to its list of domain names for speculative registration.

But the disputed domain name is parked with PPC ads showing content related to Honda products, and HongDae.com has been registered since 2002. The panel stated that the hondae.com domain name is confusingly similar to the complainant's well-known trademark, and the domain name initially resolved to a pay-per-click page that displayed links related to the complainant's trademark and products.

Finally, the expert group determined that the respondent's registration and use of the hondae.com domain name was malicious, and transferred the domain name Hondae.com to the complainant.

In the case of Honda, the respondent registered the hondae.com domain name, took advantage of the popularity of the Honda brand, and tried to make a profit by parking PPC ads on the domain name. This behavior is a typical malicious domain name registration, which damages the interests of the brand and disrupts the market order.

We should be more vigilant against malicious domain name registrations and strengthen the supervision of domain name registrations. At the same time, companies should also actively safeguard their own brand rights and interests, and promptly discover and deal with such infringements. I hope that through this incident, more people will understand the harm of malicious domain name registrations and jointly create a healthy and orderly network environment.

Source: domaingang