Thinks it Owns The South Pole (.com) — Wicked Fashions
Firm files UDRP for generic domain name.
Who owns the South Pole?
A clothing firm thinks it does.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
The onslaught of firms trying to steal generic domain names continues.
The latest attempt is from Wicked Fashions, Inc., a clothing brand that has a couple trademarks for “SouthPole” for its clothing lines. The firm wants to get its hands on SouthPole.com and filed a complaint through Nation Arbitration Forum that commenced yesterday.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that SouthPole.com doesn’t infringe on Wicked Fashions’ trademark. The domain, right now parked at DomainSponsor, doesn’t have any links related to clothing. For many years, in the hands of a previous owner, it was a full web site.
Wicked Fashions has a number of trademarks for SouthPole, counting one that claims a first use in commerce in 1994.
But guess what? Other firms have South Pole trademarks. For example, there’s a South Pole brand for fresh vegetables dating all the way back to a first use in 1958. That trademark was filed in 1968.
Wicked Fashions’ domain name for SouthPole clothing is Southpole-usa.com, so it’s no wonder it wants a better domain name. But how it plans to prove that the domain infringes its trademarks and that it was registered in bad faith is beyond me.
