Squatting Not Necessarily An Abuse – Brand Owners Beware!

Brand owners have a number of possible ways of "recovering" from cyber-squatters, domain names that incorporate their trade marks. However, court proceedings, whether for trade mark infringement or passing off, can be expensive and time-consuming. Brand owners, therefore, often choose to employ the dispute resolution procedures provided by bodies such as Nominet (which administers the ".co.uk" domain).

The key to success under the Nominet procedure is the ability to show that the domain name in question was either registered with abusive intent or is being used in an abusive manner. In many cases, this has not proved at all difficult. The Nominet panels have readily found abuse where the cyber-squatter has registered a number of well known marks as domain names, has made no use of the domain name in question and/or has offered to sell the domain name to the relevant brand owner for a large sum of