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CIRA Rules in Domain Name Dispute: Discovery Toys Inc. v. Thevasagayam
Recently, a panelist of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) ruled on a domain name dispute between Discovery Toys Inc., a California-based retailer of educational toys, and Thevasagayam, a Toronto-resident who had registered the domain name, “discoverytoys.ca”, in November, 2000. CIRA’s panelist ruled in favour of Discovery following an examination of several key factors outlined in CIRA’s Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP). First, the domain name was found to be “confusingly similar” to Discovery’s trade-marks, which existed prior to the domain name registration. In fact, absent the .ca suffix, the domain name was identical to such marks. Second, Thevasagayam had “no legitimate interest” in the domain name. Specifically, none of the CDRP criteria in support of a legitimate interest, including a bona fide offering of goods and services, were found to exist. The disputed domain name was merely used to operate a pay-per-click web page that linked to third party websites. Lastly, the registration of the domain name was found to be made in “bad faith”. The nature of the web page itself acted to disrupt Discovery’s business, and Thevsagayam ultimately sought to sell discovery.ca for a profit. Consequently, the CIRA panelist ordered the transfer of the discovery.ca domain name to Discovery.
For a copy of the CIRA dispute resolution panel decision, visit:
http://www.cira.ca/en/dpr-decisions/00118-discoverytoys.ca.pdf