Louis Vuitton has lost a domain name dispute against Demand Domains for the domain name LVMobile.com
The company claimed that LVMobile.com infringed on its LV trademark, and that the parked domain at LVMobile.com included links to the fashion company’s competitors. It also alleged that Demand Domains is a front for Demand Media’s eNom registrar.
Demand Domains countered that Louis Vuitton does not have exclusive rights to the term “LV”, and that the trademarks it cited were for stylized marks and designs rather than just the letters LV. It also claimed that the only way Louis Vuitton could have found the ad links on the parked domain for its competitors was by using the search box on the page.
In an additional submission, Louis Vuitton said that it offered mobile accessories and owned the domain names Louisvuittonmobile.com, lvmobile.us, and lvmobile.fr. However, none of these domains are active and they were registered after LVMobile.com was registered.
The panel found that the domain name wasn’t confusingly similar to Louis Vuitton’s marks:
In this case, however, the added generic term points to a specific product or industry, namely the mobile industry, not related to the Complainant. While Complainant’s mark LV is registered in the U.S. in a stylized form and as a part of a pattern on a handbag, Complainant has not shown that the letter combination as such is well known and famous for Complainant’s products outside the fashion industry. None of the LV marks, including the International Registration for “L.V.” covers mobile phones or related goods or servces.
The Complainant has provided printouts from its web site, showing some mobile phone accessories, however the mark featured in connection with the goods is not LV but LOUIS VUITTON, and the Complainant does in fact not claim that the LV mark is used but refers collectively to “the Trademarks” incorporating LOUIS VUITTON and VUITTON.
Notice how Louis Vuitton played fast-and-loose with its trademarks, grouping together its supposed LV trademark with its Louis Vuitton and Vuitton marks, then referred to them together as being used for mobile products while really LV was not used in conjunction with mobile accessories.
