First Citizens BancShares,a bank holding company has recently won a domain name case at the World Intellectual Property Organization against Richard Davis.
The company filed a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,requesting firstcitizens-financialplus.com and firstcitizenstrust.com domain names to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant.
First Citizens BancShares is proprietor of numerous trademark registrations for "FIRST CITIZENS" mark .Therefore,they contended that the disputed domain names are confusingly similar to its trademark.
Moreover,the WIPO appointed panel found that the respondent registered and used the disputed domain names in bad faith and ordered the transfer of domain names to the First Citizens BancShares.
"Respondent has linked both of the disputed domain names to active websites that advertise financial and banking services in competition with those offered by Complainant. Thus web users who visit the website associated with <firstcitizenstrust.com> would be exposed to potential competitors of Complainant via links to websites such as www.barclayhedge.com; www.moneyweek.com and www.trust-deeds.co.uk."
You can read the decision here .