Armal.com was ordered to be transferred, and UDRP once again saw investors lose the case

Recently, the holder of the domain name Armal.com lost a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) case. The domain name has been registered and held by a Korean investor since 2014, and has not been substantially developed during this period, only pointing to a generic pay-per-click (PPC) advertising page. Ten years later, the Italian company Sebach – Servizio Bagni Chimici – S.p.A. filed a complaint, claiming that it has rights in the "ARMAL" trademark and requested that the domain name be transferred.

The complainant has multiple "ARMAL" trademark registrations, mainly concentrated in the Italian and European markets, and its trademark application in South Korea has not been approved. Despite this, the sole arbitrator appointed by WIPO still believes that the respondent "may have known" the complainant's global trademark rights when registering and using the domain name, and based on this, combined with factors such as "passive holding" and "PPC page", ruled that its registration was malicious.

According to some data, before the formal complaint was filed, the complainant had tried to purchase the domain name several times but failed to reach a deal. Although this may have a certain reference value for judging whether there is malice, it was not adopted by the arbitrator in this case.

In the end, the domain name Armal.com was ruled to be transferred to the complainant.

This judgment once again reminds domain name investors that although the registration behavior may comply with regulations, there is still a lot of room for interpretation between domain name registration and trademark rights. Even if the registration time is earlier than the trademark application and the registrant is located in a different country from the trademark owner, it may still be ruled to constitute infringement due to the global influence of the trademark. This puts higher compliance requirements on domain name investors when selecting and holding assets.

Source: domaingang