Harry Potter movie studios Warner Bros. Entertainment has failed to get the domain name Dumbledore.com through a cybersquatting complaint.
Warner Bros. Entertainment is trying to get the domain name Dumbledore.com, the namesake of the lovable Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series by filling a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum. The complaint has separated into two issues, as described by domain name attorney Gerald Levine the man who literally “wrote the book on UDRP“, was the panelist.
Warner Bros.’s trademark
First, Dumbledore is an old dictionary word. J. K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series mentioned that the fictional character’s name was based on this old world. Second, the actual owner of the domain did nothing with the domain against Warner Bros. company or its products when the dispute was filed. It seems that because the domain is an old dictionary word, Warner Bros. has nothing to do with.
Levine wrote:
“The disputed domain name is a dictionary word that by happenstance corresponds to one of the words in Complainant’s trademark. Complainant does not have a trademark for the word ‘dumbledore’ standing alone. It may be that aficionados steeped in Harry Potter lore will instantly associate ‘dumbledore’ with the fictional character, and possibly with the trademark owner, but that is not enough to grant Complainant a monopoly on a word that has meanings beyond that conveyed by the mark.
A dictionary word domain name that corresponds to a word in a trademark is not presumptively abusive of third-party rights. Use alone will determine the outcome of rights. If Respondent is found to be using the domain name in bad faith it will support registration in bad faith, but there can be no abusive registration without proof of use in bad faith.”
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