WIPO Domain Name Dispute Resolution Service for .EU (and .ею and .ευ)

Whereas the UDRP is limited to the protection of trademark rights, the ADR Rules protects names in respect of which a right is recognized or established by the national law of a Member state and/or European Union law (e.g. copyright, trademarks, and geographical indications provided in national law or European Union law, and, in as far as they are protected under national law in the Member States where they are held: unregistered trademarks, trade names, business identifiers, company names, family names, and distinctive titles of protected literary and artistic works).

While the UDRP sets three cumulative requirements, under the ADR Rules a complainant must demonstrate why the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to the name or names in respect of which a right or rights are recognized or established by national and/or European Union law (as specified and described in accordance with Paragraph B 1 (b)(9)); and, either: why the disputed domain name has been registered by its holder without rights or legitimate interests; or the disputed domain name should be considered as having been registered or being used in bad faith

It is sufficient to prove that either registration or use of the disputed domain name by the registrant is in bad faith, whereas the UDRP requires the complainant to prove both

Under the ADR Rules, the examples of registration or use of a disputed domain name in bad faith include:

• “(1) circumstances indicating that the domain name was registered or acquired primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name to the holder of a name, in respect of which a right is recognized or established by national and/or European Union law, or to a public body; or
• (2) the domain name has been registered in order to prevent the holder of such a name in respect of which a right is recognized or established by national and/or European Unionlaw, or a public body, from reflecting this name in a corresponding domain name, provided that:
• (i) the Respondent has engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or
• (ii) the domain name has not been used in a relevant way for at least two years from the date of registration; or
• (iii) there are circumstances where, at the time the ADR Proceeding was initiated, the Respondent has declared its intention to use the domain name, in respect of which aright is recognized or established by national and/or European Union law or which corresponds to the name of a public body, in a relevant way but failed to do so within six months of the day on which the ADR Proceeding was initiated;
• (3) the domain name was registered primarily for the purpose of disrupting the professional activities of a competitor; or
• (4) the domain name was intentionally used to attract Internet users, for commercial gain to the Respondent’s website or other online location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with a name on which a right is recognized or established, by national and/or European Union law, or it is a name of a public body, such likelihood arising as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement of the website or location or of a product or service on the website or location of the Respondent; or
• (5) the domain name is a personal name for which no demonstrable link exists between the Respondent and the domain name registered”

Mutual Jurisdiction means a court jurisdiction at the location of either the principal office of the registrar (provided the respondent has submitted in its registration agreement to that jurisdiction, and provided that the court thus designated is located within the European Union) or the respondent’s address as shown in the Registry’s WhoIs database at the time the complaint is submitted to the Center

Under the ADR Rules, the remedies available are transfer or revocation of the disputed domain name.

If a complainant requests transfer of the disputed domain name, the complainant must provide evidence that the complainant satisfies the general eligibility criteria for registration set out set out in Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2019/517

Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, or specified otherwise in the registration agreement, the language of the ADR proceeding shall be the language of the registration agreement for the disputed domain name. This information is publicly available in the Registry’s Whois records.

In the absence of an agreement between the parties, the complainant, before initiating a complaint, may file a written request that the language of the ADR proceeding be different than the language of the registration agreement for the disputed domain name. This pre-complaint proceeding is described in paragraph A (3) of the ADR Rules. A Model Request is available below and the separate applicable fees are informed in WIPO’s Schedule of Fees for .EU

The Registry will implement a panel decision to transfer or revoke a disputed domain name after thirty (30) calendar days (as opposed to 10 business days under the UDRP), if the Registry does not receive documentation from one of the parties regarding a court proceeding/

In case of a transfer, the Complainant will need to follow-up with EURid, the Registry regarding the steps for the implementation

• - may consist of numbers, dashes;
• - may only be registered under the “.eu” extension;/li>
• - may not start nor end with a dash;
• - may not have a dash in the third and fourth positions, unless the first two characters are “xn” and the domain name can be converted to a valid IDN

• - may consist of numbers, dashes, and unicode characters from the Cyrillic, Greek or Latin scripts;
• - may not combine characters from different scripts;/li>
• - when consisting of Latin or Greek characters will have the .EU extension, while domain names made up entirely of Cyrillic characters will have the .ЕЮ extension
• - may have numbers in all Latin, Cyrillic and Greek characters;
• - may not start nor end with a dash;
• - may not have a dash in third and fourth position