The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge has filed a UDRP on the domain name Cambridge.com.
The domain is owned by Kirkland Holdings LLC of Brookline MA since March 2012.
The prior owner of the domain name is “MHL” also of Brookline who got the domain around September 2009.
The domain has an original creation date of September 21, 1992 making it just about 25 years old.
As you can see on the screenshot the site Cambridge.com asks users to “click to Choose Your Cambridge.
The choice on the right is a picture of the University who official website can be found at cam.ac.uk
If you click on the UK picture you go to a site about stuff to do and see in Cambridge, UK with a bunch of ads, while a click on the left takes you to a site about Cambridge which is outside of Boston and the home of some of the most prestigious colleges in the US, including Harvard & MIT.
There are ads for online education and other education related topics but also to book hotels and has posts about events and other activities.
The owner of the domain Cambridge.com indicates on its site that it has a registered Service-mark and I did find two for the company, one for “CAMBRIDGE.COM EVERYTHING CAMBRIDGE, UK” and another for “CAMBRIDGE.COM EVERYTHING CAMBRIDGE, US”
Really don’t get this one at all, we will keep our eye on the UDRP.
Watching this one closely. We own OxfordEdition.com . Thank you for this post.
I am sure Denver.com owner Peter Niederman is on the edge of his seat hoping the University of Denver will not be doing the same.
this kind of stuff has to be very difficult to write about about Michael..just cringing yes ?
Brian
Pretty Amazing that a University as world renowned as Cambridge would take this action and sully their reputation
Hopefully will result in a RDNH
Michael-with any luck there’ll not only be a RDNH finding but a real financial slap to this University for the costs/damages they’ve caused with this action. A University of this caliber should be ashamed of themselves.
They should definitely file an RDNH. There are have been numerous UDRP decisions protecting Geodomain owners.
the real question is will the likely 3 panelists find RDNH against the very folks so many in their profession masturbate with.
Oxford Edition – not even close to this claim on Cambridge.
Why else would you own Oxford edition – seems like you might be going the other way on that one
There never was a Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvard, MIT, and the 100,000+ residents of that purported city ought to be compelled to change their mailing addresses to “Pseudo-Cambridge, MA”.
Likewise, 128,000 Canadians are squatting on British intellectual property. If they ask very nicely, Her Majesty may deign to let them scribble “Psuedo-Cambridge, Ontario” on envelopes and street signs.
As for the 124,000 Brits living in the city of Cambridge from which the university took its name, they too would be violating the institution’s trademark if they were to use Cambridge.com to talk about themselves. At this point, they are vassals of the university, obliged to live in its shadow and shut up.
The hundreds of crumbling apartments everywhere called “Cambridge” have equal, first come-first serve rights to the COM over the EDU that doesn’t even have the EDU.
Who are the attorneys that have encouraged their clients to launch this misguided case?
Curious if anyone has used “implied acceptance” as a defense when the ownership of a domain goes unchallenged for such a long period of time. Probably a question for Michael.
It’s used often in Real Estate as “implied ownership” due to continued use over many yearswithout any formal objection filed etc and according to state law and local zoning. The difference here is that that applicable “Law/Rules” are worldwide so hopefully Michael can answer this very interesting question.
This is one of the most absurd disputes I have ever seen.
1.) The domain has been registered for 25 years.
2.) Cambridge is a major city outside Boston with 100K+ people and two of the top schools in the world (Harvard & MIT).
3.) If you look at the Cambridge (disambiguation) Wikipedia page there are 20+ Geo locations in the US alone with the same name, never mind the rest of the world. There are also many brand uses as well.
4.) University of Cambridge does not even own Cambridge.edu, some junior college does.
University of Cambridge has an endowment of £4.9 billion (2013). They clearly could have purchased this domain if they wanted it. They should be embarrassed by this dispute and I hope they are found guilty of RDNH and damages are pursued for there actions.
Brad
Brad – edu isn’t used for UK colleges and universities. Instead they use .ac.uk
Cambridge.ac.uk is probably their website.
I just checked it seems Cambridge.ac.uk has a page telling people the university’s website is http://www.cam.ac.uk – even weirder that they don’t have/own/use Cambridge.ac.uk as their site
Interesting. It is odd though as University of Oxford owns Oxford.edu (forwards to ox.ac.uk).
London.edu is a school located in London, England as well.
Brad
Brad, I don’t believe the British University of Cambridge would be entitled to register Cambridge.edu even if it were available. The eligibility requirements seem limited to U.S. entities:
http://net.educause.edu/edudomain/eligibility.asp.
The University is the registrant of cam.ac.uk and Cambridge.ac.uk according to
https://community.jisc.ac.uk/janet-apps/whois but they don’t resolve the latter.
The University isn’t the registrant of Cambridge.co.uk or Cambridge.uk. However the registrant of those domain names doesn’t make use of a photograph of the University in a prominent position on its homepage unlike the registrant of Cambridge.com which may be a clue for why a decision was taken to file this complaint. There is more to Cambridge, UK than a photograph of its famous University.
The time has come for domain name investors to contribute say $20 per year each into a legal defense fund to guarantee that these idiots who file stupid claims like this one will know that they are going to have to defend themselves in a court of law. Individually, many of us lack the wherewithall to do this but as a growing group this would give us some clout. If 10,000 of us contributed by next month this time, there would be $200,000 in that fund. There should also be a statute of limitations built into the bylaws of this industry.
Something REALLY, REALLY needs to be done about these frivolous UDRPs. Only lately I’ve been being attention to them and I don’t know if it’s always been like this (it probably has) but this is getting ridiculous!
I see a BIG OPPORTUNITY here for the Right Attorney to work with victims of attempted reverse domain name hijacking and take all of these thieves to court based on settlement decisions.
If enough press got around that there’s a HIGH CHANCE you will be taken to court and SUED for your frivolous UDRP I think these would slow down a little bit and good money can be made.
When I see cases like this, I wonder whether some attorneys understand domain laws because I expect the University of Cambridge to consult with their lawyers before this filing.
When I see cases like this, I wonder whether some domain owners understand trademark laws.
The silver lining in this nonsense demonstrates that when it comes to business and marketing – there is and only will be one on the shelf – a DOT COM.
The lawyers representing the University will not be publicly known until the decision comes out.
My guess the University is being represented with in house attorney’s who are not specially versed on UDRP law.
We will have to wait and see
I suspect the in-house counsel is using external counsel as to limit risk to themselves. That has been my experience in the corporate world.
This is why we also list the attorney who represent Complainants who get a RDNH ruling against them so they will be indexed in Google as well as being involved in an attempted theft of property
Perhaps content such as http://cambridge.com/uk/education/e-learning/ has encouraged the filing of this UDRP complaint, given trade marks owned by Complainant.
It may or may not be a coincidence that Cambridge.com was featured by a well known domain brokerage newsletter 5 days ago.
Bit quick to write and file a UDRP in that time IMHO but I suppose there’s the possibility that the registrant stuck the potential to sell the domain name under the noses of the complainant causing them to look into the web site more closely. Conjecture.
They are different