IP Quick Tip: Domain names

Show notes

Read our IP Brochure on Domain Name Law. Connect with Pascal Böhner.

If you are a brand owner, you are often faced with infringing domain names which are registered for third parties and incorporate your brand or trademark – offering counterfeits, for example.

You may challenge.com domains and many others by initiating arbitration proceedings, particularly under the UDRP.

For the German .de domain names such arbitration proceedings are not available. Does this mean that you always have to initiate full court proceedings? No – and here’s our tip why:

Any registrant of a .de domain name is required to use proper registration data, and foreign registrants have to indicate a German address for service. But domain grabbers don’t tend to use correct data. Therefore, address details are often wrong. If you can prove this, the Registry can and will take action and likely proceed to the cancellation of the domain name at issue. And in case you have filed a so-called “Dispute Entry” beforehand, the domain name will not be cancelled but transferred to you.