WIPO: Xpand.com: Offering The Domain For Sale To The Highest Bidder is A Bona Fide Offering Of Goods/Services”

In a WIPO case decided today on the domain name, xpand.com, a three member panel ruled in favor of the domain holder despite a trademark, the domain being parked and the domain holder turning down a $10K offer demanding “something in the six figures”

Although the complainant had a trademark so did several other companies, which added to the panel’s finding that the term Xpand was generic.

Especially supportive of domainers was the following language in the decision:

“””Due to the commercial value of descriptive or generic domain names it has become a business model to register and sell such domain names to the highest potential bidder. Such a practice – including the sale of the domain name – has been found to constitute use of the domain name concerned in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services provided that the registration of the domain name was not undertaken with intent to profit from or otherwise abuse a complainant’s trademark rights””

It also did not hurt the domain holder that the trademark holder in question did not “start using” its trademark until several years after the domain holder obtained the domain.