Sanofi loses domain dispute thanks to diligent arbitration panelist — Drug giant

Despite no response from domain name owner, panelist considers all of the facts.

I often call out UDRP panelists who “phone in” their decisions without considering the other site of the story.

So today I’m happy to write regarding a case brought by pharmaceutical firm Sanofi against the owner of Sinofn.com.

Panelist Susanna H.S. Leong ought to be commended for taking the time to truly consider the case Sanofi brought, despite the domain name owner not responding to the UDRP.

Sanofi, the firm behind Plavix and Allegra, argued that Sinofn.com is a classic case of typosquatting against the Sanofi.com domain name. It also argued that Sanofi.com is a transliteration of the Chinese registered trademark of SANOFI (赛诺菲).

The domain name points to the website of a Chinese pharmaceuticals firm Sinofn, but Sanofi noted that the whois record does not suggest it is owned by the firm.

Leong took a look at all the facts and determined that Sanofi’s case had big holes in it. She noted that, given the distance of the letters “a”, “i” and “n” on a typical computer keyboard, the argument for deliberate misspelling of the Sanofi.com is weak. Also, the transliteration of 赛诺菲 would actually spell “sinofei” and not “sinofn”. Finally, she noted that the prefix “sino” in English is commonly used to refer to China.

Ultimately, she believes the domain name likely refers to the Chinese firm Sinofn.

The panelist thus denied Sanofi’s request to transfer the domain name.