EUBrowser Lose Second UDRP Adidas.ie – The Floodgates may have opened

I mentioned only a couple of weeks ago the UDRP decision against EUBrowser (Gabor Varga and Jozsef Petho) for buy-sell.ie.

In that first UDRP the complaint was lodged by a relatively small Irish company, whereas in this case the stakes were higher:
Adidas AG and Adidas (Ireland) Limited v. Gabor Varga and Jozsef Petho

Some references to other domains that the pair have registered were mentioned in the decision:

the evidence indicates that the Registrants have engaged in a pattern of similar behaviour in that they have registered domains name referable to other well-known trade marks such as nike.ie, ipod.ie and googel.ie and have also registered business names linked to those domain names such as “nike.ie”, “ipod.ie” and “Googel Surprise from Alexia.” The Registrants do not explain this beyond saying that they are developing a number of “different online models” and that is why there are a number of registered business names. And, in a very recent decision under the Policy, the Registrants were found to have acted in bad faith in relation to the domain name buy-sell.ie. See B & S Limited v. Gabor Varga and Jozsef Petho, WIPO Case No. DIE2006-0005.

(my emphasis)

The complaint was upheld on several grounds, including the trademarks:

The Panel concludes that, disregarding the domain suffix “.ie”, the disputed domain name is identical to a protected identifier in which the Complainants have rights.

In this case the complainants were able to cite a rather long list of trademarks.

What was very interesting to see was mention that the registry itself had suspicions:

A letter from IEDR indicating its belief that the Registrants have been manipulating the criteria for .ie domain registrations is further evidence of bad faith.

Full details of the decision on the WIPO site.

It looks like the trademark holders are slowly but surely coming out of the woodwork.