{
    "case_number": "CAC-ADREU-005405",
    "time_of_filling": null,
    "domain_names": [],
    "case_administrator": null,
    "complainant": [],
    "complainant_representative": null,
    "respondent": [],
    "respondent_representative": null,
    "factual_background": "According to the Complainant, Emirates is the official international airline of the United Arab Emirates.  The scale of the Complainant’s operations was 17,544,140 passengers and 1,155,894 tonnes of cargo carried in 2006-2007.  Emirates is a profitable airline that has received hundreds of awards for excellence. \r\n\r\nThe Complainant has spent considerable time and money promoting its business world wide.  In the 2007 financial year it spent AED 3.55 billion on sales and marketing.  It is well known through sponsorship, of for instance the 1999 Cricket World Cup, Arsenal Football Club (Emirates stadium and team shirts), FIFA World Cup 2006, AC Milan, Rugby World Cup 2007, and others.\r\n\r\nThe Complainant owns UK and CTM trademarks comprising or incorporating the word Emirates.  It also operates the website www.emirates.com.\r\n\r\nThe Respondent is Stichting Roos Beheer of the Netherlands.  It appears that Mr Michael Toth of the UK is the beneficial owner and guiding mind of the disputed domain name.  According to Mr Toth he has various business interests, including websites that contain information of interest that are funded by advertising revenue or by commissions from referrals to other websites.  \r\n\r\nThe disputed domain name emirates.eu was apparently registered in September 2006.",
    "other_legal_proceedings": "The Panel has not been made aware of other legal proceedings pending or decided in respect of the domain name presently disputed.",
    "discussion_and_findings": "Given the convoluted contentions in this dispute, the Panel will set out certain findings of fact before analysis of the Rules.\r\n\r\nRoosIT, which is not a Party to this dispute, appears to be domiciled in the Netherlands and to have registered over 200 Maltese trademarks, in blocks of consecutive registration numbers.  They are of the general form M&A&P&S, that is to say, the word MAPS with ampersands between the letters.  The list includes many possibly uncontentious words such as MUSIC, MOVIES, RADIO, TICKETS, BEACH ..., but in each case with ampersands between the letters.  \r\n\r\nTrademarks such as M&A&P&S might appear to be of limited use but their purpose to RoosIT evidently was to lay claim to related .eu domain names at the opening, on the basis of a prior right in a trademark.  Domain names cannot contain ampersands, therefore the domain name MAPS could be claimed to be closely related to the trademark M&A&P&S. \r\n\r\nAs pointed out by the Complainant, the learned Panelist in Formula One Licensing BV v RoosIT, Marc Roos, Case No. 02955, found reason to refer to the present Respondent in these terms: “... Stichting Roos Beheer, a company which appears to be related and whose signatory appears to be the same Mark [sic] Roos as signed the transfer on behalf of the Respondent”.  That dispute concerned the Maltese trademark F&1 on the basis of which the relevant Respondent (named as RoosIT, Marc Roos) obtained the domain name f1.eu.  The decision referred in its course to RoosIT, Marc Roos, having registered 214 Maltese ampersand-rich trademarks and subsequently a number of related .eu domain names.  \r\n\r\nThe Respondent says there is no evidence to connect Stichting Roos Beheer with RoosIT.  Either way, Stichting Roos Beheer is the recorded holder of the presently disputed domain name.  ADR Rules A1 defines a Respondent as “the holder of a .eu domain name registration ... in respect of which a Complaint ... is initiated”.  The Respondent is therefore the registrant Stichting Roos Beheer.\r\n\r\nWith the evident acquiescence of the Respondent, Mr Michael Toth answers for it in this dispute.  According to Mr Toth’s evidence he is the beneficial owner of the disputed domain name, he thought it had been transferred to him, and expects that it will be.  It is clear that he has control over it.  It will be convenient to refer to the Respondent, or Stichting Roos Beheer, or Mr Toth, interchangeably.\r\n\r\nMr Toth expressly states his business model.  He operates websites upon the principle known as click-through or pay-per-click.  Websites display links to advertisers, and when a viewer follows such a link, the destination site pays a commission to Mr Toth.  He may also exhibit paid advertisements.  Thus his websites generate income.\r\n\r\nIn general the click-through business model may be entirely legitimate.  Many websites providing information such as news or data as a public service are legitimately subsidized by click-through or paid advertisements.  The model is capable of sophistication as the operator may subscribe to a service that targets advertisements and links according to what is known about each visitor and their search, or the operator can incorporate functionality such as an off-the-shelf search engine or car-rental search facility.\r\n\r\nThe business can be magnified by owning multiple domain names.  Mr Toth provides a list of over 200 domain names he owns based on country names (americansamoa.org.uk, andorra.me.uk, anguilla.me.uk ...).  It may be that many of these are free to use. \r\n\r\nThe name EMIRATES requires deeper enquiry.  On the one hand it may be partially in the nature of a geographic identifier.  These are notoriously difficult to trademark standing alone; see, for example, Her Majesty The Queen, in right of her Government in New Zealand, as Trustee for the Citizens, Organizations and State of New Zealand, acting by and through the Honourable Jim Sutton, the Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade v Virtual Countries, Inc., WIPO Case No. D2002-0754, which was decided against the relevant Complainant by a Panel of three.  Even if a place name is trademarked, the registration may be restricted or placed on a supplementary register as a matter of record but with little or no protection.  \r\n\r\nOn the other hand the word emirate is generic, meaning a nation with an Emir.  Generic words standing alone cannot normally be trademarked in the same generic field but may be in another.  Thus Apple or Blackberry standing alone can be trademarked in respect of computers or telephones, but not for fruit.  \r\n\r\nOn the balance, the Panel finds the word emirates, standing alone and detached from the immediate context of any particular emirate or the United Arab Emirates, to be more a generic word than a place name.  Furthermore, it is outside of its generic field that the word emirates has become the name of a major international airline.  In other words, in the present context, reference to EMIRATES standing alone would likely evoke a particular airline and seldom a place or number of places.  Inescapably, the name EMIRATES has been accepted for registration as a trademark in the European Community and in the UK.  The Complainant owns the trademark and the Respondent does not.\r\n\r\nThe Panel now turns to the matters that the Complainant is required to prove on the balance of probabilities in accordance with ADR Rules B11(d)(1).  The citations indicated by both Parties have been consulted, taking into account differences between the Rules and the UDRP.\r\n\r\nWHETHER THE DOMAIN NAME IS CONFUSINGLY SIMILAR TO A NAME IN WHICH THE COMPLAINANT HAS RIGHTS\r\n\r\nThe registration of UK trademark 2023709 displays the word EMIRATES below an Arabic character that, according to the document, reads as Al-Imarat, meaning The Emirates.  The trademark was registered by the Complainant on March 22, 1996 in Class 39.  The equivalent trademark was registered by the Complainant as CTM 22137, Class 39, on August 10, 1998.\r\n\r\nNotwithstanding the stylized character of the trademarks, the Panel is satisfied for the purposes of ADR Rules B11(d)(1)(i) that the Complainant is the holder of registered trademarks in the word EMIRATES standing alone in respect of which a right is recognized or established by the national law of a Member State and Community law.\r\n\r\nThe Complainant must prove that the effective component of the disputed domain name emirates.eu, i.e., EMIRATES, is identical or confusingly similar to the name EMIRATES.  Clearly it is identical and the Panel so finds in the terms of ADR Rules B11(d)(1)(i).\r\n\r\nWHETHER THE RESPONDENT HAS RIGHTS IN THE DOMAIN NAME\r\n\r\nThe Complainant has asserted prima facie that the Respondent does not have rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name because the Complainant holds the rights in the name and has not authorized the Respondent to use it.\r\n\r\nThe ADR Rules provide for the Respondent to rebut the Complainant’s assertions in any way, and provide illustrative circumstances that, if any is proved based on an evaluation of all evidence presented, shall demonstrate the Respondent’s rights or legitimate interests for purposes of ADR Rules B11(d)(1)(ii).  These circumstances are specified in ADR Rules B11(e) as follows:\r\n\r\n“(1) prior to any notice of the dispute, the Respondent has used the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with the offering of goods or services or has made demonstrable preparation to do so;\r\n\r\n(2) the Respondent, being an undertaking, organization or natural person, has been commonly known by the domain name, even in the absence of a right recognized or established by national and\/or Community law;\r\n\r\n(3) the Respondent is making a legitimate and non-commercial or fair use of the domain name, without intent to mislead consumers or harm the reputation of a name in which a right is recognized or established by national law and\/or Community law.”\r\n\r\nThe Respondent is found by the Panel not to have rights under ADR Rules B11(e)(3) because the website to which the disputed domain name resolves is overtly commercial, and not to have rights under ADR Rules B11(e)(2) because the Respondent or any associated business cannot realistically claim to be known as Emirates.\r\n\r\nIn the terms of ADR Rules B11(e)(1), Mr Toth asserts that he is using the disputed domain name for the offering of a service of information about the Emirates with functionality including a car hire search facility.  The website of the disputed domain name resolves to, and serves passively to augment the catchment of, emirates.co.uk.  Mr Toth invites positive comparison with the website of emirates.org (operated by another) which he insinuates to have “official” or “government” connotations.  Having made the visit the Panel would be very surprised indeed if the website at emirates.org had the official endorsement of the United Arab Emirates (see www.government.ae by contrast).  As to the content of the website to which the disputed domain name ultimately resolves, the Panel finds it to follow a model common on the Internet, projecting a veneer of token relevance over a revenue-generating click-through operation.  It does little more than refer visitors to the goods or services of others, of which Mr Toth need have no knowledge or day to day control.\r\n\r\nNevertheless, the wording of ADR Rules B11(e)(1) is silent on the degree to which use must be demonstrably bona fide.  The Panel makes no finding under ADR Rules B11(d)(1)(ii) and will proceed under the heading of bad faith.\r\n\r\nWHETHER THE DOMAIN NAME HAS BEEN REGISTERED OR USED IN BAD FAITH\r\n\r\nADR Rules B11(f) defines circumstances, without limitation, that may be evidence of the registration or use of a domain name in bad faith.  ADR Rules B11(f)(4) is pertinent:\r\n\r\n“the domain name was intentionally used to attract Internet users, for commercial gain to the Respondent’s website or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with a name on which a right is recognized or established, by national and\/or Community law”.\r\n\r\nMr Toth’s revenue model depends entirely on the attraction of visitors who then follow links.  The Complainant’s registered trademark is the name of a major international airline.  The disputed domain name is identical.  It is reasonable to expect that many, perhaps a majority, of Internet users who search for the name EMIRATES expect to find the authentic website of the Complainant.  By the nature of search engine technology they are likely to be led to Mr Toth’s website, as are those who make the same entirely sensible but wrong guess of the URL of the Complainant’s European website.  The word EMIRATES would have functioned in a trademark sense.  The Panel finds it likely that visitors may initially be confused into believing that the website has the endorsement of the Complainant, and thus Mr Toth would have attracted visitors through the fame of the Complainant’s trademark.  All of the requirements are met for the Panel to find bad faith registration and use within the ambit of ADR Rules B11(f)(4).\r\n\r\nThe Panel is also mindful of the finding of the learned Panelist in WIPO Case No. D2000-0163, who referred to a name (veuvecliquot.org) “so obviously connected with such a well-known product that its very use by someone with no connection with the product suggests opportunistic bad faith”.  Whoever precisely registered the present disputed domain name evidently employed some ingenuity to secure a trademark different from that of the Complainant’s, but identical when stripped of characters impermissible in a domain name.  The Respondent is the holder of a domain name comprising the Complainant’s trademark and is responsible for its use.  In all the circumstances the Panel concludes that the name EMIRATES, standing alone, is too powerful, too universally recognized, and too well protected by trademark, to enable any indulgent view that it is merely a generic word in innocent usage.\r\n\r\nSince Mr Toth has answered for the Respondent, the Panel states for the record its finding that the Respondent is the holder of a disputed domain name that has been registered and is used in bad faith within the meaning of ADR Rules B11(d)(1)(iii).\r\n\r\nThe Panel notes that the Complainant has identified itself as “Emirates, (A Dubai Corporation)”, with an address in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.  The Complainant has not addressed the question of its eligibility to register a .EU domain name in the terms of Article 2(b)(i) or (ii) of Regulation 733\/2002.  The disputed domain name, which would otherwise have been transferred to the Complainant, is therefore revoked.",
    "decision": "For all the foregoing reasons, in accordance with ADR Rules B12, the Panel orders that the domain name emirates.eu be revoked.",
    "panelists": [
        null
    ],
    "date_of_panel_decision": "2009-08-14 00:00:00",
    "informal_english_translation": "The Complainant is the airline company Emirates (a Dubai Corporation) which is the owner of trademark registrations including: EMIRATES, UK trademark 2023709; and EMIRATES, CTM 22137.  The Respondent is the registered holder of and has enabled a person to use the disputed domain name emirates.eu.\r\n\r\nThe Panel found that the disputed domain name is identical to a name in respect of which a right is recognized or established by the national law of a Member State and Community law; and that the Respondent has acted in bad faith since it may reasonably be concluded that the disputed domain name was intentionally used to attract visitors for commercial gain to the Respondent’s website, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the name EMIRATES.\r\n\r\nSince the Complainant has not established eligibility to register a .EU domain name, the Panel ordered that the disputed domain name emirates.eu be revoked.\n",
    "decision_domains": [],
    "panelist": null,
    "panellists_text": null
}