Louis Vuitton has failed to gain control of lv.com in a domain
name dispute. The luxury goods company could not prove that the
current owner registered and used the name in bad faith so could
not gain control of it.
In a process run by the US National Arbitration Forum, chair of
the arbitration panel Calvin Hamilton said that Louis Vuitton
Malletier SA had failed to fulfil two of the three criteria needed
to wrestle control of the domain name from its owner, Manifest
Information Services.
Manifest registered the address in 1995 and has used it in the
past as an address advertising businesses in Las Vegas, though
there is currently no site at the address.
In order to force the transfer of a domain a company must prove
three things: that the domain is confusingly similar to something
in which the company has rights, in this case a registered trade
mark for LV; that the other party has no legitimate rights to the
name; and that the other party registered or uses the name in bad
faith.
Manifest did not dispute that Louis Vuitton, a manufacturer of
expensive bags that is part of the luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton
Moet Hennessy, has trade mark rights in LV. In fact, the panel did
raise doubts about whether this was the case.
"The panel states for the record that it is not the Complainant
but the Louis Vuitton Malletier Corporation France that is the
holder or owner of those trademark registrations," wrote the panel.
"Complainant has failed to state how if at all Complainant has
rights in the LV trademark."
Because Manifest did not object, however, the panel acted for
the purposes of the case as if the complainant did have rights that
could be asserted over LV in relation to certain goods and
services.
Manifest had to prove that it had a legitimate interest in the
name, and the panel ruled that its hosting of a web portal for Las
Vegas businesses counted as a legitimate business on the
domain.
That still held true even though the portal only operated
between 1995 and 2001. The panel said that since the domain was
made up of two letters it could reasonably be held to stand for
many things and not just for Louis Vuitton's products.
Louis Vuitton had to show that Manifest used the name in bad
faith, such as using it to trick internet users into visiting there
on the assumption that they were visiting Louis Vuitton. The panel
said that this was not the case because a legitimate business had
been hosted there.
Louis Vuitton also said that the name had been registered so
that it could be sold to it, pointing out that the name had
previously been for sale. But the panel said that a domain being
for sale was in itself no evidence of bad faith use or
registration.
The panel ruled in favour of Manifest. "Having failed to
establish two of the three elements required under the ICANN
Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be denied," it
said.
