The domain name BillionaireBay.com owned by eBay has been taken over by a cybersquatter through a UDRP dispute.
It was pointed out by NCAF panelist Nicholas J.T. Smith that the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy is more suited to the resolution of clearcut cases of cybersquatting than to the resolution of trademark disputes.
As you can see in this case, the domain owner was well aware of eBay and even attempted to trade off of eBay’s reputation by creating an “eBay for the 1%”. While eBay challenged the domain owner’s trademark, the domain owner created a company called BillionaireBay and recently obtained a French trademark for it. Several categories of services conflicting with eBay’s services were removed from the French trademark authority before it was approved.
Having secured rights in the BillionaireBay mark, Smith opined that the Respondent would have succeeded on the first element of having rights in confusingly similar marks if he had filed a UDRP in this proceeding.
Smith emphasized that this was not a simple cybersquatting complaint, but a trademark dispute, and eBay had the option of taking the domain name owner to court.