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Sportagus: Domain Names and Trade Marks, a Close Albeit Uneasy Relationship

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Notes

  1. Wilson (2009). For a detailed overview of the law of domain names, see Bettinger and Wadell (2015).

  2. It should be noted that some national and regional rules go beyond the UDRP. See e.g. Art. 4 of Regulation (EU) 2019/517 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 on the implementation and functioning of the .eu top-level domain name and amending and repealing Regulation (EC) No. 733/2002 and repealing Commission Regulation (EC) No. 874/2004.

  3. Pereira da Silva (2008) pp. 550–551, and Vicente (2008) p. 578.

  4. Werra (2020) p. 145 speaks of “a chain of mutual contractual obligation [that] ultimately imposes the UDRP on the relevant domain name holders”. Discussing the nature of these proceedings and rejecting its qualification as arbitration see Lee (2020), pp. 400 et seq. Werra (2020) p. 148.

  5. The WIPO Center administers proceedings both for generic top level domain names (such as .com, .net, or .gov) and certain country top level domain names (including .ai (Anguilla), .pa (Panama), or .tz (Tanzania)), the Czech Arbitration Center deals with .eu domain names.

  6. Articles 4(k) and 5 UDRP are explicit in that regard.

  7. Article 4(i) UDRP. In 2013, ICANN adopted the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS System), which also allows the suspension of the registration.

  8. Kur (2014) pp. 23–32.

  9. I discuss the topic in detail in Sousa e Silva (2020) pp. 463–491.

  10. This seems hard to justify given that the overwhelming majority of consumers will know they are buying perfume “replicas”.

  11. This had been advanced by Vicente (2008) p. 581 citing French case law.

  12. Ohly (2014) pp. 41–47. Nevertheless, on 8 March 2022 (procedure 448/20.4YHLSB.L1.S1) the Supreme Court decided that the criteria for assessing the risk of confusion in domain name cases must be the same as those used between trade marks.

References

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  • Sousa e Silva N (2020) Concorrência Desleal e Propriedade Intelectual: Os Atos de Aproveitamento. Almedina, Coimbra

  • Vicente DM (2008) Nomes de domínio e marcas. In: AAVV, Direito Industrial, vol. V, Almedina, Coimbra, pp 563–583

  • Werra J (2020) Alternative dispute resolution for trademark disputes. In: Calboli I, Ginsburg JC (eds) The Cambridge handbook of international and comparative trademark law. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 142–157

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  1. Professor Auxiliar, Porto Faculty of Law, Universidade Católica Portuguesa and PTCS Advogados, Porto, Portugal

    Nuno Sousa e Silva

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  1. Nuno Sousa e Silva
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Correspondence to Nuno Sousa e Silva.

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For a translation into English of the Portuguese Supreme Court decision Sportagus, see this issue of IIC at https://doi.org/10.1007/s40319-022-01201-x.

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Sousa e Silva, N. Sportagus: Domain Names and Trade Marks, a Close Albeit Uneasy Relationship. IIC 53, 845–848 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40319-022-01200-y

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