Virgin Enterprises Limited v. PARKJUNGWON PARKJUNGWON
Claim Number: FA1612001707287
Complainant: Virgin Enterprises Limited of London, United Kingdom.
Complainant Representative:
Complainant Representative: Stobbs of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Respondent: PARKJUNGWON PARKJUNGWON of Seoul, Seoul, International, KR.
Respondent Representative: «cFirstName» «cMiddle» «cLastName»
REGISTRIES and REGISTRARS
Registries: XYZ.COM LLC
Registrars: Uniregistrar Corp
The undersigned certifies that he or she has acted independently and impartially and to the best of his or her knowledge has no known conflict in serving as Examiner in this proceeding.
Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson, as Examiner.
Complainant submitted: December 14, 2016
Commencement: December 14, 2016
Default Date: December 29, 2016
Having reviewed the communications records, the Examiner finds that the Forum has discharged its responsibility under URS Procedure Paragraphs 3 and 4 and Rule 4 of the Rules for the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (the "Rules") .
Complainant requests that the domain name be suspended for the life of the registration.
Clear and convincing evidence.
Procedural Findings:
This complaint and findings relate to the single domain <virgingames.xyz>. No multiple Complainants or Respondents are involved in this proceeding. No domain names are dismissed from this complaint.
Findings of Fact:
The complaint at hand refers to the registration of the domain name <virgingames.xyz> registered by PARKJUNGWON PARKJUNGWON being the Respondent in the case.
The Complainant states that, since its establishment in 1970 the Complainant’s VIRGIN group has expanded to over 200 companies worldwide operating in 32 countries including throughout Europe and the USA, employing over 40,000 people and generating an annual turnover of 4.6 billion pounds.
Complainant submits that it is the owner of rights in VIRGIN and VIRGIN GAMES registered trademarks and have a validated entry made at the Trade Mark Clearinghouse in respect of the same. In addition, Complainant submits that it has acquired a significant reputation and goodwill in the VIRGIN name globally.
According to the Complainant, the domain <virgingames.xyz> is at least identical to the marks which the Complainant owns rights in.
Complainant made several attempts to contact the domain owner so to reach an amicable solution. In its turn, Respondent did not provide a response to the complaint in accordance with the URS rules of procedure.
Complainant submits that bearing in mind the extent and nature of the Complainant’s reputation in the VIRGIN and VIRGIN GAMES brands, it is difficult to find reason to believe that the disputed domain name was registered for any reason other than to sell it to the Complainant for valuable consideration in excess of documents out of pocket costs.
Based on the foregoing, the Complainant elaborates on the arguments to demonstrate that the Registrant has no legitimate right or interest to the domain name, and that the domain was registered and is being used in bad faith.
Even though the Respondent has defaulted, URS Procedure 1.2.6, requires Complainant to make a prima facie case, proven by clear and convincing evidence, for each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be suspended.
Identical or confusingly similar (URS 1.2.6.1.)
The Examiner finds that the domain name <virgingames.xyz> fully incorporates the Complainant’s VIRGIN GAMES marks.
Complainant has furnished evidence of its ownership of the VIRGIN GAMES trademarks which was submitted to, and validated by, the Trademark Clearinghouse. In addition, it is well accepted that the top level domain is irrelevant in assessing identity or confusing similarity, thus the new gTLD “.xyz” is of no consequence here.
The Examiner finds that the domain name <virgingames.xyz> is identical to the Complainant’s VIRGIN GAMES marks under URS 1.2.6.1.
No rights or legitimate interests
The Examiner determines that the Respondent is not commonly known by the VIRGIN GAMES name as the WHOIS record for the <virgingames.xyz> domain name lists “PARKJUNGWON” as the domain name registrant, whereas VIRGIN GAMES is known in respect of the Complainant whose corporate name incorporates VIRGIN name.
It is assumed from the complaint that Respondent has no connection or affiliation with Complainant and has not received any license or consent, express or implied, to use Complainant’s VIRGIN GAMES mark in a domain name or otherwise.
The use of a domain name in a way of a redirection as conveyed by the Complainant does not of itself confer rights or legitimate interests arising from a "bona fide offering of goods or services" or from "legitimate noncommercial or fair use" of the domain name. No demonstrable preparations to use the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services were presented by the Respondent to the Examiner.
Factoring that the Respondent defaulted to assert defenses to the Complaint to demonstrate his rights or legitimate interest in the domain name, the Examiner finds that the Respondent has not established any rights or legitimate interests in the domain name <virgingames.xyz> under URS 1.2.6.2.
Bad faith registration and use
In fulfillment of the duty of verifying whether the Complainant has made false claims, the Examiner conducted a whois search through the online whois reverse lookup service located at the URL address http://reversewhois.domaintools.com and the search results immediately indicated that PARKJUNGWON as the domain names’ registrant is associated with more than 170 domain names, whereas wona5004@naver.com, indicated as the Respondent’s contact e-mail, is associated with more than 165 other domains. In the present case, the Examiner considers that holding such a large portfolio of domain names is an indicia of bad faith, particularly considering that, as seen in this case, an identical trademark owned by a third party is involved.
Yet the more, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name on September 25, 2016 long after the Complaint’s mark was first registered and when the mark obtained the high degree of awareness among the public.
The Response does not provide and clear any substantiation of the use of another persons’ trademarks in the domain names in good faith. The content of the website to which the domain name redirects does not support the use of the Complainant’s mark in good faith either, as no information or adverts of the Respondent’s business or its business plans are published onto the conflicting website. At the same time, through diverting consumers, the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract increased traffic to the site which domain name resolves to.
Based on the above cumulative circumstances the Examiner finds such behavior to evidence Respondent’s bad faith registration and use under URS 1.2.6.3.
The Examiner finds that the complaint was neither abusive nor contained material falsehoods.
After reviewing the Complainant’s submissions, the Examiner determines that
the Complainant has demonstrated all three elements of the URS by a standard of clear and convincing evidence; the Examiner hereby Orders the following domain names be SUSPENDED for the duration of the registration:
<virgingames.xyz>
Antonina Pakharenko-Anderson, Examiner
Dated: December 29, 2016
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