The Royal Bank of Scotland Group,a British banking and insurance holding company has recently won a domain name dispute.
The complainant,represented in this case by James A. Thomas,submitted a complaint to the National Arbitration Forum,requesting the disputed domain name,mintmastercard.com to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant.
The financial services company has many registrations of the "Mint" mark.Therefore,they contended that the domain name is confusingly similar to its trademark.
Moreover,the complainant contended that the respondent registered and used the domain name in bad faith.
"Respondent is using the <mintmastercard.com> domain name to resolve to a website containing links to third-party websites, some of which directly compete with Complainant. The Panel finds Respondent is using the disputed domain name to disrupt Complainant’s business by diverting Internet users to Complainant’s competitors. This is evidence of bad faith registration and use ."
" Respondent receives click-through fees for diverting Internet users to third-party websites. Internet users accessing Respondent’s <mintmastercard.com> domain name may become confused as to Complainant’s affiliation with the resulting website. The Panel therefore finds that Respondent’s use of the <mintmastercard.com> domain name constitutes bad faith registration and use."
Because the respondent failed to submit a response in this proceeding and because the complainant managed to demonstrate all the elements needed,the Panel decided the disputed domain name to be transferred from the respondent to the complainant.
You can see the decision here .
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