Nike Files Complaint For NikeQA.com Domain Name

Nike has filed a UDRP ,seeking control of NikeQA.com domain name.The complaint was filed with the National Arbitration Forum a few days ago.

 

According to whois records, NikeQA.com was first registered in August 2013.

The National Arbitration Forum will examine if NikeQA.com is confusingly similar to Nike’s trademark,if the current owner has rights over it and if the domain is being used in bad faith .The disputed domain name will be passed over to Nike if it falls under all three of these stipulations.

The case is still pending compliance checks with the National Arbitration Forum 

 

 

ICANN Releases New gTLD Contracting Statistics To 4 July

Below are the key Contracting statistics, as of 04 July 2014:

 

Yahoo Wins YahooFree.com Domain Name in Arbitration

An arbitrator with the National Arbitration Forum has recently awarded the domain name YahooFree.com to Yahoo.The company submitted the complaint on May 1,2014.

 

According to whois records, the domain name was first registered in 2003.

 Yahoo owns many trademark registrations for the “Yahoo” mark all over the world.Therefore,it is more than obvious that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar with its trademark .Moreover,the company contended in the complaint that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name and that the respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith .

One of the key points of this complaint was when Yahoo managed to demonstrate that the respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith,by trying cause confusion and exploit that confusion for commercial gain.The domain name resolved to a blog offering links to download music.

Yahoo managed to establish all three elements required under the ICANN Policy and the Panel ordered the disputed domain name to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant.

You can read the decision here .

 

 

DNS Belgium Chosed Valideus to Validate .Brussels and .Vlaanderen Applications

DNS Belgium, the company behind .BE extension, announced that it has selected DNS Valideus to validate applications for .Vlaanderen and .Brussels domain names during the second phase of the launch.

 

You can read the press release after the jump:

“DNS Belgium has selected Valideus from the various candidates to validate applications for .vlaanderen and .brussels domain names during the second phase of the launch.  This phase runs from 2nd October to 3rd November 2014.

The launch of .vlaanderen and .brussels will take place in different phases. Phase one is designed for trademark owners that have their trademarks recorded in the TMCH database. During the second phase local organisations, businesses and government institutions will be able to apply for a domain name, based on their corporate name, trading name, trademark, geographical name, etc. During this phase, we will be calling on the services of an external provider to examine and validate the applications.

To find this validation partner, DNS Belgium contacted a number of providers out in the market at the end of last year. They were asked to submit a proposal to us. We retained  8 of these proposals and invited the providers to submit a final price quote. In the end, 4 of them made us a binding offer and from those, we selected Valideus.

Validation platform and law firm

In particular, Valideus was able to win us over by offering a clever combination of a technical specialist (Valideus) and a large law firm (Novagraaf). Valideus will handle the operational aspects of the process. This includes setting up the platform and the technical integration with DNS Belgium and back-end registry. Novagraaf will be responsible for the actual validations of the applications. Depending on the influx of applications, Novagraaf can also very quickly draft in additional validators from its offices in Paris and Amsterdam.

Right now, DNS Belgium and Valideus are in the process of setting up and configuring the validation platform. We expect this platform to be fully up and running by the end of the summer, in plenty of time for the beginning of our launch phase.

Once Valideus has validated an application, the name can also effectively be registered as a .vlaanderen and/or .brussels domain name. We will give you more details about the validation process soon.”

Highest New gTLD Sale : Luxury.Estate Sells for $50,000

DomainHoldings announced recently the sale of Luxury.estate for $50,000. This is the highest new gTLD sale up to date.

 

According to whois records, the seller is from Massachusetts and the buyer is from Monaco. The seller acquired the domain name for about $250,000 in the first days of EAP.

Up until now, this is the highest reported new gTLD sale. There are other 48 five-figure new gTLD sales,including:

Soccer.guru – $12,500
Sloan.plumbing  – $12,500
Pacific.Ventures – $12,500
Metallographic.equipment – $12,500
Immobilier.estate – $12,500

Here is what DomainHoldings said about the sale :

“A couple weeks ago we sold Luxury.Estate for $50,000 USD

Personally I think it was a very fair price for the buyer and the seller and for domain investors you should know that this domain was purchased on day 5 of the EAP program roughly costing under $200. That is $49,000 + return on a 60 day investment of less than a couple hundred bucks.

Yes, these new GTLD’s do not work at all 🙂

Don’t get wrapped up in the drama folks. The industry is going to make these a win and when they do – we all win.

It’s not a race, it’s a marathon.”

Congratulations to both the seller and the buyer.