As a result of technological progress, the Internet has become not only one of the most popular advertisement means but also the place where a lot of goods are sold directly to consumers. Naturally, the infringement of IP rights, in particular trademark rights, has moved to the cyber environment from the shops. One of the clearest and, at the same time, malevolent action in the file is domain name infringement.
A clear indication of its importance is the fact that domain name infringement is indicated as an example of potential trademark infringement on the Internet directly in the Civil code of Russia. Furthermore, even if an administrator of the website is not a Russian citizen since the website is in the Russian language available from Russia and addressed to the Russian consumers the disputes related to it are within the jurisdiction of the Russian courts. It is important to mention that one of the circumstances that are estimated by courts in such kind of disputes is the way how the domain name is used. Although the court practice confirms that even keeping a domain name similar to the registered trademark without using it creates unreasonable barriers for the trademark owner to use its trademark on the market, it is always better to show bad faith of the domain name holder to the judge.
One of the most complicated matters in this situation is to assure that the domain name in question will not fall into the third party’s hands, so the right holder will have to start all over again. Unfortunately, Russian legislation does not provide the possibility to transfer the disputed domain to the claimant by the judge’s decision. Our associates have vast experience in dealing with domain name infringements and have developed efficient strategies to secure the transfer of domain name to the right holder of the trademark through preliminary injunction requests, settlement agreements and other means.
At the same time, the court practice has developed unique claims for domain disputes that are aimed to secure the interests of a trademark owner or the owner of other means of individualization in such types of disputes. For example, a type of prohibition claim can be regarded as a claim to seize particular information from a website or even to stop addressing the particular website.