DECISION

 

Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Viktor Frantsuzov

Claim Number: FA2607002234435

 

PARTIES

Complainant is Sub-Zero, Inc. ("Complainant"), represented by Bianca L. Ascolese of Foley & Lardner LLP, Wisconsin, USA. Respondent is Viktor Frantsuzov ("Respondent"), California, USA.

 

REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME

The domain name at issue is <subzerorepair.com> (the "Disputed Domain Name"), registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC (the "Registrar").

 

PANEL

The undersigned certifies that they have acted independently and impartially and to the best of their knowledge have no known conflict in serving as Panelist in this proceeding.

 

Gerald M. Levine and Francine Siew Ling Tan as Panelists and David L. Kreider as Chair.

 

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Complainant submitted a Complaint to Forum on July 23, 2026; Forum received payment on July 23, 2026.

 

On July 23, 2026, GoDaddy.com, LLC confirmed by e-mail to Forum that the <subzerorepair.com> domain name is registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC and that Respondent is the current registrant of the name. GoDaddy.com, LLC has verified that Respondent is bound by the GoDaddy.com, LLC registration agreement and has thereby agreed to resolve domain disputes brought by third parties in accordance with ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Policy").

 

Complainant submitted an Amended Complaint on July 27, 2026, following the Registrar's disclosure of the underlying registrant information.

 

On July 27, 2026, Forum served the Complaint and all Annexes, including a Written Notice of the Complaint, setting a deadline of August 21, 2026 by which Respondent could file a Response to the Complaint, via e-mail to all entities and persons listed on Respondent's registration as technical, administrative, and billing contacts, and to postmaster@subzerorepair.com. Also on July 27, 2026, the Written Notice of the Complaint, notifying Respondent of the e-mail addresses served and the deadline for a Response, was transmitted to Respondent via post and fax, to all entities and persons listed on Respondent's registration as technical, administrative and billing contacts. That deadline reflected the automatic four-day extension Respondent invoked on July 28, 2026 under Paragraph 5(b) of the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Rules").

 

A timely Response was received and determined to be complete on August 18, 2026.

 

On August 21, 2026, Complainant filed an Additional Submission under Forum Supplemental Rule 7, and Respondent filed an Additional Submission in reply the same day. The Panel's treatment of both submissions is addressed below under the heading "PRELIMINARY ISSUE: ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS."

 

On August 25, 2026, pursuant to Respondent's request to have the dispute decided by a three-member Panel, Forum appointed Gerald M. Levine and Francine Siew Ling Tan as Panelists and David L. Kreider as Chair.

 

Having reviewed the communications records, the Administrative Panel (the "Panel") finds that Forum has discharged its responsibility under Paragraph 2(a) of the Rules "to employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice to Respondent" through submission of Electronic and Written Notices, as defined in Rule 1 and Rule 2. The Panel may therefore issue its decision based on the documents submitted and in accordance with the ICANN Policy, ICANN Rules, Forum's Supplemental Rules and any rules and principles of law that the Panel deems applicable.

 

PRELIMINARY ISSUE: ADDITIONAL SUBMISSIONS

Complainant's Additional Submission was filed within the period prescribed by Forum Supplemental Rule 7, with proof of service, and responds to matters first raised in the Response: Respondent's acquisition of the Disputed Domain Name at auction in August 2023, his reliance on the Oki Data criteria, and his archived "Terms" page; it also places in the record a capture of the website as it stood on August 21, 2026. Respondent's Additional Submission is confined to that capture and to the characterization of his own evidence. Under Rule 12 and Supplemental Rule 7 the admission of unsolicited submissions lies in the Panel's discretion. Because Complainant could not reasonably have anticipated the acquisition chronology and the Oki Data defense when it filed, and because fairness under Rule 10(b) calls for Respondent to be heard on the new material, the Panel admits and has considered both Additional Submissions.

 

RELIEF SOUGHT

Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from Respondent to Complainant.

 

PARTIES' CONTENTIONS

A. Complainant

Complainant alleges:

 

That it sells high-end residential refrigeration appliances under the SUB-ZERO mark, which it has used continuously since 1945, and provides replacement parts and installation, maintenance, and repair services for those appliances; its affiliate Wolf Appliance, Inc. ("Wolf") does the same for cooking appliances under the WOLF mark. Complainant owns United States trademark registrations for SUB-ZERO, including Reg. No. 1,543,399 for refrigerators and freezers and Reg. No. 3,507,324 for installation, repair and maintenance of kitchen appliances (collectively, the "SUB-ZERO Marks"). Complainant has spent on average more than twenty million dollars annually in recent years advertising the SUB-ZERO Marks in the United States, and United States sales of SUB-ZERO products exceeded one billion dollars over the five years ending in 2025. Complainant's official website at <subzero-wolf.com> directs customers to its authorized, factory-trained service providers.

 

That the Disputed Domain Name <subzerorepair.com> is confusingly similar to the SUB-ZERO Marks because it incorporates the SUB-ZERO house mark in its entirety, omitting only the hyphen, and adds the descriptive term "repair," which describes services Complainant itself offers under the mark, and the ".com" generic top-level domain.

 

That Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name. The WHOIS record identifies Respondent as an individual with no associated organization; Respondent is not commonly known by the Disputed Domain Name; and Complainant has never licensed, certified, trained, or otherwise authorized Respondent to use the SUB-ZERO Marks. The website resolving from the Disputed Domain Name offers competing repair services for SUB-ZERO and WOLF appliances in the San Diego area under a SUB-ZERO SERVICE & REPAIR logo resembling Complainant's own, describes its technicians as "certified," claims to use only genuine parts, and carries no disclaimer of affiliation. Such use is neither a bona fide offering of services nor a legitimate noncommercial or fair use, and it does not qualify as nominative fair use.

 

That Respondent registered and is using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith. Respondent uses the Disputed Domain Name to attract Internet users for commercial gain by creating a likelihood of confusion with the SUB-ZERO Marks as to source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement, within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv), and to disrupt Complainant's business and that of its authorized service network, within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iii). The SUB-ZERO Marks have been in use for more than fifty-five years before the Disputed Domain Name was created, and the content of the website leaves no doubt that Respondent knew of them.

 

In its Additional Submission, Complainant further alleges that the relevant time for assessing Respondent's conduct is the filing of the Complaint, when, on Respondent's own account, the website carried no visible disclaimer and claimed certified technicians and genuine parts; that Respondent's evidence of actual repairs cannot satisfy the Oki Data criteria where the website misstated his relationship with Complainant, and the decisions he relies on each involved a website that disclosed the respondent's independent status; and that Respondent's removal of the logo and of the "certified" language after notice of the dispute, while still adding no disclaimer, confirms rather than cures his bad faith.

 

B. Respondent

 

Respondent contends:

 

That he does not dispute that the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to the SUB-ZERO mark, that he knew of the mark when he acquired the Disputed Domain Name, or that he has never been authorized or factory-certified by Complainant. Nor does he ask the Panel to disregard the website as captured on July 22, 2026, which he accepts contained stylized SUB-ZERO-formative branding, "certified" technician wording, genuine and OEM parts wording, and no visible disclaimer of non-affiliation.

 

That the Complaint's premise that Respondent registered the Disputed Domain Name in 2004 is wrong. Respondent purchased the already-existing domain name through GoDaddy Auctions on August 6, 2023 for $2,010.17, at a time when he was already operating an appliance repair business through IFIX Appliance Repair LLC under the customer-facing name QFIX, and which he acquired in order to run a repair service focused primarily on Sub-Zero appliances, not for resale. Respondent has never listed the Disputed Domain Name for sale, parked it, or used it for advertising links.

 

That he has rights or legitimate interests under Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) because, before notice of the dispute, he used the Disputed Domain Name in connection with actual, independent repair services, as shown by supplier invoices and a supplier account confirmation from 2023 and 2024 and two paid Sub-Zero repairs for customers who came to him through the Disputed Domain Name. Applying the Oki Data criteria recognized in WIPO Overview 3.1, ¶ 2.8.1, Respondent contends that the first criterion is satisfied, that the third is "the most difficult" for him on the July 22 capture but is informed by an archived "Terms" page dated November 22, 2025 containing non-affiliation language and a March 15, 2026 crawl showing a footer link to it, and that lack of manufacturer authorization is not automatically dispositive, as Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Bernell Burton / Refrigeration 365, LLC, Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Daniel Ellis / Joel Gonzalez / SEO Repair Shop / Elite Sub-Zero Repair, Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Adrian Loughlin / Factor Appliance, and Textron Aviation Inc. v. Omar Morais illustrate.

 

That Complainant has not proved bad faith registration and use. Intent must be assessed at the August 2023 acquisition; knowledge of the mark does not by itself establish the purpose prohibited by the Policy; there is no evidence of an offer to sell the Disputed Domain Name within Policy ¶ 4(b)(i); commercial overlap with Complainant's authorized network does not show a primary purpose to disrupt within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iii); and although the commercial attraction of customers is admitted, the record supports a competing inference that Respondent was operating a genuine independent repair service with deficient marketing language rather than a scheme to pass himself off as Complainant. The "Certified Sub-Zero Technicians" phrase does not determine Respondent's acquisition purpose, and Complainant identifies no customer who was actually told that Respondent was Complainant or its authorized provider.

 

In his Additional Submission, Respondent further contends that WIPO Overview 3.1, ¶¶ 2.11 and 3.2.1, permit the Panel to consider past use and changes in website content, not only the state of the website at filing; that his statement that he does not claim every historical part was OEM is not an admission that any identified part was not, and that the Workiz receipts in evidence are current exports that do not prove the "Sub-Zero & Wolf Repair Services" wording appeared on customer documents in 2023 and 2024; and that the record establishes only the point-in-time states of the "Terms" page, not who removed the footer link, when, or why.

 

FINDINGS

The Panel finds the following:

 

Complainant is the owner of United States Trademark Registration No. 1,543,399 for SUB-ZERO, registered June 13, 1989, for refrigerators and freezers, and of United States Trademark Registration No. 3,507,324 for SUB-ZERO, registered September 30, 2008, for installation, repair and maintenance of kitchen appliances, with a claimed first use in 1945. The TSDR records in evidence show both registrations to be live and renewed. The Declaration of Anthony S. Fox in Support of Complaint, dated July 21, 2026 (the "Fox Declaration"), attests to continuous use of the mark since 1945, to United States advertising expenditure averaging more than twenty million dollars annually in recent years, and to United States sales of SUB-ZERO products exceeding one billion dollars in the five years ending in 2025. Respondent does not dispute any of this, and on that record the Panel finds that the SUB-ZERO mark is a well-known mark in the field of residential kitchen appliances and their repair.

 

The WHOIS record in evidence shows that the Disputed Domain Name was created on September 21, 2004. The GoDaddy receipt in evidence, corroborated by the Declaration of Viktor Frantsuzov, dated August 18, 2026 (the "Frantsuzov Declaration"), shows that Respondent purchased the Disputed Domain Name through GoDaddy Auctions on August 6, 2023 for a total of $2,010.17, of which $2,000.00 was the auction price. Respondent did not create the Disputed Domain Name in 2004 and the Complaint's statement to the contrary is corrected accordingly. The Registrar's verification identifies the registrant as Viktor Frantsuzov, an individual, with no organization named.

 

California Secretary of State and licensing records in evidence show that IFIX Appliance Repair LLC was organized on March 20, 2023 and that an appliance repair license issued to "Qfix Appliance Repair" on May 1, 2023, both before Respondent's purchase of the Disputed Domain Name. West Coast Parts Distributing invoices addressed to IFIX Appliance Repair LLC dated September 22, November 8, and November 15, 2023 record purchases of appliance service parts, and an e-mail from that distributor dated March 11, 2024 confirms that an account had been set up for IFIX Appliance Repair to purchase Sub-Zero, Wolf, Cove, and Lokring parts. Receipts and payment-processor records in evidence show two Sub-Zero repairs for separate customers, paid on December 8, 2023 and February 21, 2024; the Frantsuzov Declaration states that both customers came to the business through the Disputed Domain Name. The Panel accepts that Respondent operated an actual appliance repair business and performed actual repairs on Sub-Zero appliances before notice of this dispute.

 

Screenshots taken on July 22, 2026 and attached to the Declaration of Sophia Arden in Support of Complaint, dated July 22, 2026 (the "Arden Declaration"), show that the Disputed Domain Name resolved to a commercial website (the "Respondent's Website") headed "Sub-Zero Repair" and displaying, at the top of its home page, a boxed SUB-ZERO SERVICE & REPAIR logo. The Respondent's Website offered "Premium Sub-Zero Appliance Repair Services," welcomed visitors to "Service & Repair Sub-Zero," listed repair services for Sub-Zero refrigeration products and Wolf cooking appliances, stated that "We use only genuine Sub-Zero and Wolf parts," described its technicians as "certified," displayed a photograph of a service van bearing the SUB-ZERO logo, and identified a San Diego County service area. The footer of every captured page carried the name "Sub-Zero Repair" and links to four other pages, none of them a terms page, and nowhere on the captured pages was there a statement that the business was independent of or unaffiliated with Complainant. Respondent concedes each of these facts. Respondent further concedes that website material at the Disputed Domain Name included the phrase "Certified Sub-Zero Technicians in Your Area," which he accepts was inaccurate if read as a claim of factory certification.

 

Respondent has never been licensed, certified, trained, or otherwise authorized by Complainant or Wolf; Respondent concedes this, and the "certified" language on the Respondent's Website did not accurately describe any certification by Complainant. The Panel makes no finding as to whether any particular part installed by Respondent was or was not a genuine Sub-Zero part; the record does not permit one, and Complainant has not identified any specific non-genuine part.

 

An Internet Archive capture dated November 22, 2025 shows a "Terms" page at the Disputed Domain Name containing language that the service provider was independent and not affiliated with, endorsed by, or associated with Sub-Zero & Wolf Range Corporation, and a Common Crawl record dated March 15, 2026 shows a footer containing a "Terms of Service" link. By July 22, 2026 that link had gone from the footer. Respondent does not know when, how, or by whom the link was removed, and does not claim that the "Terms" page was continuously accessible. The non-affiliation language, when it was present, appeared only on a separate page reached through a footer link and not on the home page or the service pages.

 

Receipts generated by Respondent's Workiz system for the two Sub-Zero repairs in evidence are headed "IFIX APPLIANCE REPAIR LLC dba Sub-Zero & Wolf Repair Services," give the contact address service@subzerorepair.com, direct customers to make checks payable to "Sub-Zero & Wolf Repair Services," and thank customers for "choosing Sub-Zero & Wolf Repair Services." The Panel accepts Respondent's evidentiary limitation that these are current exports whose template wording is not proved to have appeared on the documents issued to customers in 2023 and 2024, and treats them as showing the trading name Respondent uses now. Respondent does not deny using it.

 

Screenshots taken on August 21, 2026 and attached to the Declaration of Sophia Arden in Support of Complainant's Additional Submission, dated August 21, 2026 (the "Second Arden Declaration"), show that after notice of the dispute the SUB-ZERO SERVICE & REPAIR logo no longer appeared, Complainant states and Respondent does not dispute that the "Certified Sub-Zero Technicians" wording had likewise been removed, and the site continued to be headed "Sub-Zero Repair," to present itself as "Service & Repair Sub-Zero," and to carry no disclaimer of affiliation. Respondent does not dispute the accuracy of that capture.

 

There is no evidence that Respondent has ever offered the Disputed Domain Name for sale, parked it, or used it for pay-per-click advertising, and Complainant does not contend otherwise.

 

DISCUSSION

Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules instructs this Panel to "decide a complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted and in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable."

 

Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that Complainant must prove each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name should be cancelled or transferred:

 

1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and

2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and

3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

 

Identical and/or Confusingly Similar

Complainant's United States registrations for SUB-ZERO establish its rights in the mark for purposes of Policy ¶ 4(a)(i). See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 1.2.1. The Disputed Domain Name reproduces the mark in full, omitting only the hyphen, which has no bearing on the comparison, and adds the word "repair," which describes services that Complainant itself offers under the mark and that the registration in Reg. No. 3,507,324 covers. The mark remains recognizable within the Disputed Domain Name and the added term does not dispel the similarity; if anything, it strengthens the association with Complainant. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 1.8; Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Nora Flowers, FA 2215251 (Forum May 12, 2026) (finding <subzerorepair.online> confusingly similar to the SUB-ZERO mark notwithstanding the addition of "repair"). The ".com" generic top-level domain is a technical requirement of registration and is disregarded. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 1.11.1. Respondent concedes the point.

 

The Panel finds that the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to Complainant's SUB-ZERO mark under Policy ¶ 4(a)(i).

 

Rights or Legitimate Interests

Complainant must first make a prima facie case that Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name, after which the burden of production shifts to Respondent. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 2.1. Complainant has made that showing: Respondent is an individual not commonly known by the Disputed Domain Name, has never been authorized to use the SUB-ZERO Marks, and uses the Disputed Domain Name to offer repair services in competition with Complainant and its authorized service network. Respondent does not rely on Policy ¶ 4(c)(ii) or ¶ 4(c)(iii). The question is whether he has shown that, before notice of the dispute, he used the Disputed Domain Name in connection with a bona fide offering of services within Policy ¶ 4(c)(i).

 

Respondent's answer rests on the principle, recognized in Oki Data Americas, Inc. v. ASD, Inc., WIPO Case No. D2001-0903 (WIPO Nov. 6, 2001), and summarized in WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 2.8.1, that a reseller or service provider using a domain name containing a trademark to sell or service the trademarked goods may be making a bona fide offering if, cumulatively, it actually offers the goods or services, uses the site to offer only the trademarked goods or services, accurately and prominently discloses its relationship with the trademark owner, and does not try to corner the market in domain names reflecting the mark. The Panel agrees with Respondent that lack of manufacturer authorization is not by itself dispositive; the decisions he cites, Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Bernell Burton / Refrigeration 365, LLC, FA 2014880 (Forum Nov. 30, 2022), Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Daniel Ellis / Joel Gonzalez / SEO Repair Shop / Elite Sub-Zero Repair, FA 2014882 (Forum Nov. 15, 2022), and Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Adrian Loughlin / Factor Appliance, FA 1927129 (Forum Feb. 23, 2021), each applied the criteria to an independent Sub-Zero repair business rather than excluding it from them.

 

The first criterion is met. The Panel has found that Respondent operated a real repair business and performed Sub-Zero repairs before notice of the dispute, and Complainant's description of that evidence as largely irrelevant goes too far. The Panel need not decide the second criterion: the Respondent's Website also offered Wolf service, which Respondent accepts makes the criterion "not clean," but the two brands share a corporate parent and a single Complaint treats their service market as one. Nor does the fourth criterion arise; there is no suggestion that Respondent holds other SUB-ZERO-formative domain names.

 

The defense fails on the third criterion, and the failure is not a marginal one. Rights or legitimate interests are assessed as at the filing of the Complaint, with earlier use considered for what it shows about the veracity and context of the claimed interest. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 2.11; Retail Royalty Co. and AE Direct Co LLC v. A K, FA 1580871 (Forum Oct. 31, 2014) ("The situation at the time of the filing of the Complaint is relevant when assessing the Respondent's conduct."). On July 22, 2026 the Respondent's Website contained no disclosure of Respondent's relationship with Complainant at all. What it contained instead were the statements set out in the Findings, each pointing the other way. A visitor reading those pages would take the business to be Complainant's own repair service for the San Diego area or a provider certified by it. Respondent acknowledges as much for the "certified" language, and the Panel sees no other way a consumer would read it. A website that affirmatively suggests an authorization the operator does not have is the opposite of the accurate disclosure the third criterion requires.

 

Respondent's archived "Terms" page does not alter that conclusion. The Panel accepts the archived page and the March 2026 footer link for what they show. But a statement on a separate page reached through a footer link, away from the pages on which the SUB-ZERO branding and the "certified" claims appeared, is not the prominent disclosure the criterion contemplates, and by the time of the Complaint the link itself had gone. Respondent offers the archived page only for chronology and course of conduct, and expressly not as proof that the Respondent's Website disclosed his independence at the relevant time. So limited, the evidence does not assist him on this criterion. The Panel does not go as far as Complainant in characterizing the disappearance of the link as a calculated shift to misrepresentation; the record establishes the point-in-time states of the page and nothing about who removed the link or why, and the Panel draws no inference of deliberate removal.

 

The decisions Respondent relies upon confirm rather than displace this analysis. Each of Ellis, Factor Appliance, Burton, and Textron Aviation Inc. v. Omar Morais, FA 2208967 (Forum Apr. 17, 2026), involved, as Respondent accepts, a website that disclosed the operator's independence or at least did not misstate it, the dispute in Burton being over the adequacy of a disclosure that had been made. Here there was no disclosure and an affirmative misstatement.

 

One further point completes the analysis. The manner in which the mark is used on the Respondent's Website is not nominative. A statement that an independent business repairs Sub-Zero appliances describes the service; adopting "Sub-Zero Repair" and "Service & Repair Sub-Zero" as the name and identity of the business, and "Sub-Zero & Wolf Repair Services" as the name to which customers make out their checks, appropriates the mark as Respondent's own, and Respondent already had a business name of his own, IFIX Appliance Repair LLC and QFIX, under which to trade.

 

The Panel finds that Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name under Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii).

 

Registration and Use in Bad Faith

Respondent is right that the relevant date for assessing bad faith registration is August 6, 2023, when he acquired the Disputed Domain Name at auction, and not September 21, 2004, when it was created by a prior holder; a transfer to a new registrant is treated as a new registration for this purpose. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 3.9. The Panel proceeds on that basis, and the correction does not assist Respondent. He admits that he knew of the SUB-ZERO mark when he acquired the Disputed Domain Name, that he paid $2,000 for a string consisting of that well-known mark and the word "repair," and that he did so in order to attract customers for Sub-Zero repair work. Knowledge of the mark and a purpose of trading on it for commercial gain are established by Respondent's own account. See WIPO Overview 3.1 at ¶ 3.1.4.

 

The remaining question, as Respondent frames it, is whether he intended to attract Internet users by creating a likelihood of confusion with Complainant's mark as to source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement, within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv), as distinct from merely using the mark to identify the subject of a genuine repair service. The Panel is satisfied that he did. The inference is drawn not from the confusing similarity of the Disputed Domain Name alone, but from the way Respondent used it once acquired. The Frantsuzov Declaration states that a functional repair page went live relatively quickly after the acquisition, but the record contains no capture of the site as it stood in 2023; the earliest content in evidence, from November 2025 and March 2026, shows the "Terms" page and footer link, and the July 22, 2026 capture shows the site as described in the Findings. The Panel accepts Respondent's point that the later captures are not direct proof of the site's state in August 2023; it treats them instead as the basis for an inference about the purpose for which the Disputed Domain Name was acquired, which Respondent has had the opportunity to rebut and has not. A registrant who wished only to describe an independent service had a ready means of saying so, and for a period had a page that did say so, one click removed from anything a visitor would read. For the reasons given under the second element, the presentation Respondent chose instead sought the custom of people who believe they are dealing with the mark owner or its authorized agent. The two paid repairs that, on Respondent's own evidence, came to him through the Disputed Domain Name illustrate the commercial gain the Disputed Domain Name produced; whether those particular customers were confused is not established and need not be. These circumstances fall within Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv). See Sub-Zero, Inc. v. armando perez / grupo servi-tec, FA 1702432 (Forum Dec. 12, 2016) ("[a]s the Panel agrees that Respondent is attempting to pass itself off as Complainant, it finds Respondent in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv)"); Sub-Zero, Inc. v. Bertblanc Ruiz, FA 1628842 (Forum Aug. 26, 2015) (ordering transfer where a Sub-Zero repair website used Complainant's stylized logo and claimed certified technicians).

 

Respondent's remaining arguments are addressed briefly. The absence of any offer to sell the Disputed Domain Name is accepted; Complainant does not rely on Policy ¶ 4(b)(i), and the Panel makes no finding under it. Nor does the Panel rest its decision on Policy ¶ 4(b)(iii), Respondent's point on that provision being well taken; the finding under ¶ 4(b)(iv) suffices. Proof of an actually confused customer is not required under ¶ 4(b)(iv), as Respondent concedes; the provision speaks of a likelihood of confusion. Respondent's good faith in performing competent repairs once a customer arrived is not the question; the Policy is concerned with how the customer was attracted. The Panel accepts Respondent's narrower reading of his own statement about parts and, as found above, makes no finding that any non-genuine part was used; bad faith is established without it. Finally, the Panel does not treat the changes made to the Respondent's Website after notice of the dispute, as Complainant urges, as an admission of Respondent's intent in August 2023; their weight is a matter of evidence, as Respondent says. But they bear on continuing use: even the amended site trades under Complainant's mark as its name and carries no disclaimer, so that the use giving rise to confusion is ongoing.

 

The Panel finds that Respondent registered and is using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii).

 

DECISION

Having established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be GRANTED.

 

Accordingly, it is Ordered that the <subzerorepair.com> domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant.

 

 

 

David L. Kreider, Gerald M. Levine and Francine Siew Ling Tan, Panelists

Dated: August 26, 2026