Toronto-based retail giant Canadian Tire yesterday lost its claim
for the domain name CrappyTire.com following the decision by a
panellist of the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO).
Canadian Tire sells everything from hubcaps to Sony PlayStations
and took legal action against Mick McFadden of Ontario, the owner
of the now unused crappytire.com domain name. The retailer was
asserting its exclusive right to be known by Canadians as “Crappy
Tire.”
To win its case before WIPO, Canadian Tire had to convince the
panellist that crappytire.com is identical or confusingly similar
to its trade marks – i.e. that when Canadians think of Crappy Tire,
they think only of Canadian Tire. Its submission to WIPO
stated:
“Canadian Tire is also colloquially referred
to or known as Crappy Tire… a slang expression derived from the
Canadian Tire trade marks… frequently used by younger Canadian Tire
customers. In the vast majority of cases, the usage does not have a
negative connotation but is an impertinent reference to a mass
merchandiser.”
Mr McFadden argued that Canadian Tire had no rights to the name
and that there could be little confusion between his domain name
and the retailer. “Since when is the word ‘Canadian’
interchangeable with or similar to ‘crappy’?” he asked the
panellist.
The panellist agreed, ruling that Canadian Tire had failed to
establish any special rights to the name, according to a WIPO
statement. The text of the decision has not yet been made
available.
There is an article
in UP Magazine by OUT-LAW.COM’s John Salmon which looks at the
CrappyTire case and other so-called cyber-griping practices.
