Bloomberg Loses Domain Name Dispute

Media giant loses case against modest town real estate agent.

Financial media firm Bloomberg Finance has lost a domain name dispute with a modest town real estate agent over the domain BloombergRealty.com.

Bloomberg filed a case with National Arbitration Forum, arguing that the domain name BloombergRealty.com violated the media firm’s trademark. The domain’s owner is Nancy Shulman, a real estate agent whose married surname was Bloomberg.

Bloomberg Finance failed on all three elements it must prove under the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy. The case was doomed right off the bat when the arbitrator found that BloombergRealty.com was not confusingly similar to the mark Bloomberg.

While finding that the domain wasn’t confusingly similar, Arbitrator Nelson A. Diaz wrote:

The Panel concludes that Complainant has not satisfied Policy 4(a)(i) since the disputed domain name is not confusingly similar to the mark; therefore, the Panel declines to analyze the other two elements of the Policy.

But he then went on to analyze the other two elements of the policy, in which he also found in favor of Shulman. Following all, her former last name and kids’ names are Bloomberg, establishing some rights to the name. She also has operated a web site at the domain name to promote her real estate business.