Nintendo of America successfully reclaims disputed domain name nintendoswitch2.com

Recently, a highly watched domain name dispute case came to an end. Nintendo of America was involved in a dispute with a Chinese individual over the domain name nintendoswitch2.com. After a ruling by the expert group, the court ruled that NintendoSwitch2.com should be transferred to the complaining party.

In this dispute, Nintendo of America was the complaining party. Nintendo emphasized that it has the registration right to the "NINTENDO" trademark, and that the trademark has a very high reputation worldwide. At the same time, the company also enjoys the common law rights of the SWITCH trademark.

The domain name involved in the case, nintendoswitch2.com, is highly similar to the Nintendo trademark and is very easy to cause confusion. In addition, the complainant, Chen Qianxiang, is not an authorized dealer of Nintendo and has no legal rights to the domain name.

In addition, Chen Qianxiang updated the domain name registration on the same day that Nintendo announced the launch of Nintendo Switch 2. This behavior was regarded by Nintendo as strong evidence of malicious registration.

Facing the accusation, Chen Qianxiang argued that he registered the domain name because its pronunciation is similar to the Sichuan dialect of China, and it contains the meaning of blessing: "You are soaring, brave to take action and change, and get a second life." At the same time, he emphasized that he registered the domain name in March 2020, earlier than the release of Nintendo's related products, and Nintendo did not obtain the "nintendoswitch2" trademark during the arbitration period, so it did not constitute infringement.

After review, the expert group determined that the nintendoswitch2.com domain name is confusingly similar to Nintendo's trademark. Chen Qianxiang failed to prove the fair use of the domain name, his explanation lacked factual basis, and his registration behavior was malicious. Finally, according to ICANN policy, the expert group ruled on May 28, 2025 to transfer the domain name to Nintendo of America.

This case once again highlights the importance of well-known companies to brand domain name protection, and also rings the alarm bell for domain name registrants. Randomly registering domain names similar to others' well-known trademarks may face legal disputes and the risk of domain name transfer.