WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

UnitedHealth Group Incorporated v. Privacy Protection / Domain Administrator

Case No. D2021-4334

1. The Parties

The Complainant is UnitedHealth Group Incorporated, United States of America (“United States”), represented by Seyfarth Shaw, United States and United Kingdom.

The Respondent is Privacy Protection, United States / Domain Administrator, Nigeria.

2. The Domain Name and Registrar

The disputed domain name <affordableuhcplans.com> is registered with Sav.com, LLC (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on December 22, 2021. On December 22, 2021, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain name. On December 22, 2021, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response disclosing registrant and contact information for the disputed domain name which differed from the named Respondent and contact information in the Complaint. The Center sent an email communication to the Complainant on December 28, 2021 providing the registrant and contact information disclosed by the Registrar, and inviting the Complainant to submit an amendment to the Complaint. The Complainant filed an amended Complaint on December 30, 2021.

The Center verified that the Complaint together with the amended Complaint satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy” or “UDRP”), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Supplemental Rules”).

In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2 and 4, the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on January 6, 2022. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was January 26, 2022. The Respondent did not submit any

response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on January 27, 2022.

The Center appointed John Swinson as the sole panelist in this matter on January 31, 2022. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. The Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.

4. Factual Background

The Complainant is a managed healthcare and insurance company based in the United States.

The Complainant has offered health insurance plans under the trademarks UNITEDHEALTHCARE and UHC for over 30 years.

The Complainant owns United States Trademark Registration No. 1809491 for UHC that was filed on March 27, 1991 and registered on December 7, 1993. This registration claims a date of first use of 1984. The Complainant also owns United States Trademark Registration No. 6205918 for UHC that was filed on November 23, 2015 and registered on November 24, 2020.

In June 2021, the Complainant registered the domain name <afforableuhcplans.com> for the Complainant’s business, but by mistake left out the letter “d” in this domain name. The Complainant did not immediately recognize this error, and printed this domain name on marketing materials.

The Respondent did not file a Response, so little is known about the Respondent.

The disputed domain name was registered on November 13, 2021.

The disputed domain name resolves to a website with pay-per-clicks relating to health insurance.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

In summary, the Complainant makes the following submissions:

The Complainant is a leading innovator in the health care industry, providing health care benefit products and services, population health management services, and health information, technology, and consulting services in the United States and over 20 other countries through a network of corporate affiliates.

The Complainant owns the registered trademark referred to in Section 4 above.

In the United States alone, the Complainant contracts directly with more than 1.3 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide to provide goods and services under the Complainant’s marks.

The Complainant’s trademarks - including UHC - were well known and widely used long prior to the Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name in November 2021. Nearly three decades ago, the Complainant and/or its predecessors-in-interest began offering insurance services under the UHC trademark.

On June 11, 2021, the Complainant attempted to register the domain name <affordableuhcplans.com> to use in connection with health insurance plans and related services. Unfortunately, due to an inadvertent typographical error, the domain name <afforableuhcplans.com> - the intended domain name, but with the letter “d” omitted from the word “affordable” - was registered instead.

The Complainant did not immediately recognize the error and began using its registered domain name to direct users to the website located at “www.uhcexchange.com” and printed the registered domain name on marketing materials distributed to consumers on a nationwide basis. A customer contacted the Complainant to report that he had noticed the error in a direct mail advertisement and typed in the domain name with the correct spelling of “affordable” to access the Complainant’s advertised site. Instead of reaching a legitimate site owned by the Complainant, however, the customer found a site linking to advertisements regarding services offered by the Complainant’s direct competitors in the health care industry.

Indeed, the disputed domain name leads to a website offering click-through advertisements for “Individual Health Insurance,” “Employee Health Insurance,” “Medicare Plans,” “Dental Insurance Plans,” and “Vision Insurance Plans.” These categories reflect some of the core consumer groups to which the Complainant markets its health plans.

Upon learning that its UHC trademark was being used in the disputed domain name in order to direct consumers to the Complainant’s competitors, the Complainant attempted to identify the registrant of the disputed domain name. The Complainant was unable to do so, because the WhoIs registration information was blocked by a privacy protection service.

In numerous cases, it has been held that a domain name that wholly incorporates a complainant’s registered trademark may be sufficient to establish confusing similarity for purposes of the UDRP.

Here, the Respondent has registered the disputed domain name which contains the Complainant’s registered UHC trademark in its entirety, combined with the terms “affordable” and “plans” and the generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”) “.com”.

The Complainant has not authorized, licensed, or otherwise permitted the Respondent to use its trademarks, nor does it have any type of business relationship with the Respondent.

The Respondent has engaged in a form of typosquatting by tweaking the erroneously registered but legitimate domain name to reflect the correct and intended spelling of the Complainant’s legitimate domain name.

The Respondent had to have chosen a name so confusingly similar to the Complainant’s UHC trademark and <afforableuhcplans.com> domain name in order to capture the Complainant’s consumers and unfairly capitalize on them by redirecting them to third-party sites run by the Complainant’s competitors.

The Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name to divert traffic from the legitimate site located to click-through menus that include a direct link to the site of one of the Complainant’s direct competitors in the health insurance business is a classic case of bad faith registration and use.

B. Respondent

The Respondent did not reply to the Complainant’s contentions.

6. Discussion and Findings

To succeed, the Complainant must demonstrate that all of the elements enumerated in paragraph 4(a) of the Policy have been satisfied, namely:

(i) the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and
(ii) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and
(iii) the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

The onus of proving these elements is on the Complainant even though the Respondent failed to submit a Response.

Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules directs the Panel to decide the complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted and in accordance with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems applicable.

A. Identical or Confusingly Similar

The first element of the Policy requires the Complainant to prove that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights.

As stated above in Section 4, the Complainant owns the registered trademarks for UHC.

The disputed domain name includes the Complainant’s trademark UHC in its entirety. Previous UDRP panels have consistently held that domain names are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark for purposes of the Policy when the domain name includes the trademark. The addition of other terms “affordable” and “plans” in the disputed domain name does not prevent a finding of confusing similarity.

The Panel concludes that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark.

The Complainant succeeds on the first element of the Policy in relation to the disputed domain name.

B. Rights or Legitimate Interests

The second requirement the Complainant must prove is that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

Paragraph 4(c) of the Policy provides that the following circumstances can be situations in which the Respondent has rights or legitimate interests in a disputed domain name:

(i) before any notice to [the Respondent] of the dispute, [the Respondent’s] use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the [disputed] domain name or a name corresponding to the [disputed] domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services; or

(ii) [the Respondent] (as an individual, business, or other organization) has been commonly known by the [disputed] domain name, even if [the Respondent] has acquired no trademark or service mark rights; or

(iii) [the Respondent] is making a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the [disputed] domain name, without intent for commercial gain to misleadingly divert consumers or to tarnish the trademark or service mark at issue.

These are illustrative only and are not an exhaustive listing of the situations in which a respondent can show rights or legitimate interests in a domain name.

The onus of proving this requirement, like each element, falls on the Complainant.

UDRP panels have recognized the difficulties inherent in proving a negative, however, especially in circumstances where much of the relevant information is in, or likely to be in, the possession of the respondent. Accordingly, it is sufficient for a complainant to raise a prima facie case against the respondent under this head and an evidential burden will shift to the respondent to rebut that prima facie case.

None of the circumstances listed in paragraph 4(c) apply in the present circumstances.

The Complainant alleges that the Complainant has not authorized, licensed, or permitted the Respondent to register or use the disputed domain name or to use the UHC trademark. The Complainant does not have a business relationship with the Respondent. The Complainant has rights in the UHC trademark which precedes the Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name.

There is no evidence that the Respondent is commonly known by the disputed domain name.

The Complainant asserts that use of a domain name to resolve to a pay-per-click advertising page, without any evidence that the advertising is relevant to the generic rather than trademark value of the domain name, was insufficient to establish rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name.

The Complainant has established a prima facie case that the Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name and thereby the burden of production shifts to the Respondent to produce evidence demonstrating rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name.

The Panel finds that the Respondent has failed to produce any evidence to establish its rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. Accordingly, the Panel finds the Respondent has no rights or any legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

The Complainant succeeds on the second element of the Policy in relation to the disputed domain name.

C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

Paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy provides that the Complainant must establish that the Respondent registered and subsequently used the disputed domain name in bad faith.

By mistake, the Complainant misspelt the word “affordable” in the domain name the Complainant intended to register, and shortly thereafter, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name which was the domain name that the Complainant in fact intended to register. The disputed domain name has the correct spelling of “affordable” and includes the Complainant’s UHC trademark.

In the present circumstances, the fact that the disputed domain name is very similar to the Complainant’s domain name (with only the letter “d” added) and resolves to a website which has pay-per-clicks that link to competitors of the Complainant, leads the Panel to conclude the registration and use of the disputed domain name is in bad faith. See Compare ZB, N.A. v. Domains By Proxy, LLC / Carolina Rodrigues, Fundacion Comercio Electronico, WIPO Case No. D2018-1959.

The Respondent’s conduct demonstrates the Respondent’s knowledge of the Complainant and the Complainant’s trademark. By registering the disputed domain name shortly after the Complainant started to advertise its similar domain name, and then by using the disputed domain names to generate pay-per-click traffic, demonstrates that the Respondent specifically knew of and targeted the Complainant. See Fédération Française de Tennis (FFT) v. Daniel Hall, dotCHAT, Inc., WIPO Case No. D2016-1941.

The Respondent has not filed a Response and hence has not availed itself of the opportunity to present any case of good faith that it might have. The Panel infers that none exists. Regal Funds Management Pty Limited v. WhoisGuard Protected, WhoisGuard, Inc. / John Clerk, WIPO Case No. D2020-2773.

The Panel finds that the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract for commercial gain Internet users to its website by creating likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the website under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy. This also could disrupt the business of the Complainant.

The Panel finds that the Respondent has both registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith.

The Complainant succeeds on the third element of the Policy in relation to the disputed domain name.

7. Decision

For the foregoing reasons, in accordance with paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the disputed domain name <affordableuhcplans.com> be transferred to the Complainant.

John Swinson
Sole Panelist
Date: February 14, 2022