Deutsche Lufthansa AG,one of the largest airline in Europe,filed a complaint with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center,requesting star-alliance.net to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant.
It seems that "Star Alliance" is an alliance of many airlines.Deutsche Lufthansa AG is one of the five members who founded Star Aliance.
Moreover,the complainant is authorised by Star Alliance Services GmbH to sue everyone who infringe the "Star Alliance" trade mark.
Therefore,the complainant contended that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to its trademark and ,also that the respondent used and registered the domain name in bad faith.
In one of the e-mails sent to Lufthansa,the respondent said :
On the other hand,the respondent ,"Lord Oxford” of Piggabeen,asked the complainant to give him $50,000 for the domain name.
"MY domain www.Star-Alliance.net is allied with www.UnitedSpaceAgency.com and www.Air-Alliance.net. and many other domains.
I’m a legend in my own mind, if not in my own time, which is the future. One a lot better than we’re headed for ... see my ‘www.SavingThePla.net’
BOTH the names “UnitedSpaceAgency” and “Star-Alliance” have been organizations thought up and used by science fiction authors, WELL BEFORE your client (or I) subverted them for a trade or design idea name. See Analog.
Seedo Was not authorised to adjust my website to offend your client by automatically offering competitors with better (or worse) ‘deals’. By all means sue them, they are making advertising dollars out of such subversion and Galcom will not permit it to be pointed elsewhere whilst you are involved, so I can’t even put an argument there, can I?..."
You can see the decision here .