Brazilian company claimed the domain infringed on its “Profit” trademark.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has, unsurprisingly, ruled (pdf) that the registrant of the dictionary term profit.com is not cybersquatting with its registration.
Profit.com is a platform for financial trading. According to the decision, the domain was acquired in 2022 for €1.1 million.
The Brazilian company Nelogica Sistemas de Software Ltda coveted the domain and filed a claim under the UDRP. It has a Brazilian trademark for “Profit” and also offers financial trading technology.
The company alleged that profit.com resolved to a Portuguese-language site that looked similar to its own website. It also said profit.com was used for a scam.
However, the panel found that any similarities between the company’s sites were likely coincidental. (It’s also likely that the site only displayed Portuguese to people in countries where the language is spoken, as the Wayback Machine shows the site in English.)
The owner of profit.com said the domain was not used for scams.
A three-person panel found the domain was not registered in bad faith:
In fact, the Panel finds that the Respondent did not register the disputed domain name in bad faith targeting of the Complainant or its trademark rights because the Complainant has not been able to prove that its trademark, which is not inherently distinctive for the services provided, and which also corresponds to a dictionary term and is therefore attractive as a domain name, enjoys such a reputation and in particular outside of Brazil that the Respondent would have been aware of it, and therefore targeted its reputation and goodwill in acquiring the disputed domain name.
The panel did not consider reverse domain name hijacking.
Zavagna Gralha Advogados represented the Complainant, and Motsnyi IP Group represented the Respondent.
Source: https://domainnamewire.com/
