InterContinental Hotels Group victorious in landmark domain name ruling
The InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) has succeeded in a groundbreaking domain name dispute.
InterContinental Hotels Corporation and Six Continents Hotels, who are owned by IHG, brought a claim against a German individual named Daniel Kirchhof. Mr Kirchhof held nearly 1,550 domain names and which, they said, the IHG companies argued he had no legitimate right to use and said misled internet users into believing that they were booking hotel rooms directly with their hotels.
The arbitration centre of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) agreed to transfer 1,519 of the domains which they said contained terms which were the same, or similar, to trade marks owned by the hotels. WIPO refused to transfer just ten domains and the hotel group withdrew claims relating to 13 other domain names.
The case is noteworthy because WIPO’s Uniform Domain Resolution Policy does not specifically provide for complaints being brought by multiple complainants. Although the complainants were separate entities, they were both members of the IHG group and therefore had a common legal interest. WIPO therefore took the view that the cases could be more efficiently dealt with together as one case.
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