In a previous post, we already said there was a conflict between the owner of facebook.nl and facebook.com. Facebook.com believed that the Dutchman, Mike Kolart, abused his domain name to create confusion and save money from ads. Kolart, however, denied this and said he had already registered the domain name before there was such a thing like facebook.com. When Kolart refused a hugh amount of money, offered by facebook.com to buy his domain name, facebook.com brought the case before WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation).

Meanwhile WIPO ruled in favor of facebook.com. This judgement was based on two reasons. Firstly the domain name facebook.nl was linked to a forum or to Stepstone.nl. Secondly, WIPO doesn’t agree on the fact that Kolart registered the domain name in June 2005. According the documents of the .nl registry (SIDN) the domain name was registered in September 2007. However, in 2007, facebook was already worldknown.

Based on this two reasons, WIPO means that Kolart registered the domain name in bad faith. He also can’t prove he has a legitimate interest in this domain name. Therefore the domain name facebook.nl needs to be contributed to facebook.com within 10 days.

‘I really don’t know how to react on this ruling,’ says Kolart. ‘What WIPO says isn’t right. I can prove that I have the domain name in my possession since 2005. I can submit invoices proving this,’ adds Kolart. He doesn’t intend to appeal against this ruling. ‘I’ve already lost a lot of money just by paying lawyers,’ says Kolart, ‘I’d like to appeal but I’m afraid to loose even more money,’ he adds. If Kolart would lose his appeal, he won’t only have to pay his lawyers’ costs but also those of Facebooks lawyers.

Author

2 Comments