ADNDRC-decisions-summary-HK-0400047

Early Procedures:

The Complainant submitted the Complaint to the Centre on July 28, 2004 and has sought a one-person Panel. The Respondent did not file a Response with the Centre. Arthur Chang has been appointed as the sole Panelist for this case. The Panelist has sent questions for clarification and asked the Complainant to provide evidence to support their claim.

Facts:

The Complainant was established in Hong Kong since 1993 and Quality Design System Ltd (QDS) a related company of the Complainant. The Complainant has been using Plan In and Quality Design Ltd. since its incorporation as trade name for doing business in 1993 and 1996 respectively. The company is currently publishing its web site using plan-in.com. Furthermore, the Complainant is using plan-in.com and QDS is using qds-net.com for all their email contacts since these domains were initially set up in year 2000.

The Complainant has commissioned 328 Link Ltd, to set up the network and web server for the domain name and web site of the disputed domain names. The Complainant has provided two signed quotations for the service provided by 328 Link Ltd, on which the Respondent has signed on behalf of 328 Link Ltd., showing he is an authorized representative of 328 Link Ltd. to provide service for the Complainant. In one email that the Respondent replied the Centre, the Respondent has mentioned “our address is” a company name called 328 Link Ltd. with contacts and address matching with those as shown on the signed quotation as described above.

On inspection by the Panelist both Disputed Domain Names were found to resolve to the web site of Plan In Interior & Contracting Co Ltd., showing all the information related to the Complainant’s business.

The Respondent had verbally informed the centre that he would not respond to the case, and as such nothing has been received by the Centre from the Respondent.

Contentions:

The Complainant asserts that the Respondent has no material or legal interest in the business activities of the Complainant or Quality Design Ltd. The Respondent was engaged and paid to set up these domain names on behalf of Plan In & QDS. Since these domain names were set up, they are hosted at Plan In’s working office. Plan In & QDS have been using both domain names for their day-to-day email contacts.

The Complainant further asserts that the Respondent was engaged to register these domain names for the Complainant, however, the Respondent registered himself as the registrant without The Complainant’s consent.

The Respondent agreed to renew and transfer these domain names unless the Complainant paid the Respondent a significant amount of money for service he has not performed. The Respondent is using these domain names to obtain monetary beneficiary and therefore the Respondent has been using these domain names in bad faith.

Save as outlined above, the Respondent did not respond to any of the claim as submitted by the Complainant.

Findings & Reasoning

1. Identical / Confusingly Similar

The Complainant has not registered any trademark or service mark for the word “Plan in” or “QDS”. However, unregistered Trade Mark is sufficient if the Mark is used in trade and distinguishes goods & services of one supplier from those supplied by others. The Complainant has operated business under the trade name since 1993 and 1996 respectively. The trade names used are confusingly similar with the Disputed Domain Names.

2. Rights and Legitimate Interests

The Respondent is not known by the Disputed Domain Names, or does not operate any business with trade name similar to the Disputed Domain Names. The Disputed Domain Names are resolved to a web site with description matching the business of the Complainant. he Respondent is only a service provider to register the Disputed Domain Names instead of a registrant of the Disputed Domain Names. There is no evidence that the Respondent has Rights or Legitimate interests in the 2 Disputed Domain Names.

3. Bad Faith

The Respondent agreed to renew and transfer the domain names if the Complainant paid the Respondent a significant amount of money. The Respondent is using these domain names to obtain monetary benefits from the Complainant and the Respondent has been using these domain names in bad faith according to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy 4b.

Decision

The Panel orders that the Disputed Domain Names to be transferred to the Complainant.