The Complainant is Six Continents Hotels, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America, represented by The GigaLaw Firm, Douglas M. Isenberg, Attorney at Law, LLC, United States of America.
The Respondent is Qu Pan Pan of Mengzhou, Henan, China.
The disputed domain name <crowneplazalkhotel.com> is registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC (the “Registrar”).
The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on May 27, 2015. On May 28, 2015, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain name. On May 29, 2015, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response confirming that the Respondent is listed as the registrant and providing the contact details.
The Center verified that the 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(a) and 4(a), the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceeding commenced on June 1, 2015. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5(a), the due date for Response was June 21, 2015. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on June 22, 2015.
The Center appointed Richard Tan as the sole panelist in this matter on July 6, 2015. 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.
The Complainant is one of a number of companies collectively known as InterContinental Hotels Group (“IHG”), one of the world’s largest hotel groups. The companies in the group own, manage, lease or franchise, through various subsidiaries, more than 4,800 hotels and 710,000 guest rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories around the world. IHG owns a portfolio of well-recognized and respected hotel brands including Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express, InterContinental Hotels & Resorts and others. The Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA brand was founded in 1983 and is used in connection with 406 hotels, with 113,562 hotel rooms, worldwide, including in Beijing, China.
The Complainant (or its affiliates) owns 330 registrations in 170 countries or geographic regions worldwide for trademarks that consist of or contain the mark CROWNE PLAZA, including trademark registration in China for CROWNE PLAZA (Reg. No.778,401), dated February 21, 2005.
The Respondent registered the disputed domain name <crowneplazalkhotel.com> on November 14, 2012.
The disputed domain name resolves to a website that appears to be an official website for or affiliated with the Complainant and its Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing.
The Complainant contends that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark in which it has rights.
The disputed domain name contains the CROWNE PLAZA trademark in its entirety and merely adds the abbreviation “lk” and the generic or descriptive word “hotel”. The Complainant contends that the fact that a domain name wholly incorporates a complainant’s registered mark is sufficient to establish confusing similarity for purposes of the Policy. Further, the addition of generic words to trademarks is not sufficient to escape the finding of confusing similarity and does not change the overall impression of the designations as being connected to the Complainant.
The Complainant also contends that the letters “lk” in the disputed domain name are an abbreviation for “Lin Kong,” which literally means, “near airport” and that this is a type of “trademark manipulation” that only adds to the confusing similarity, given that the Complainant’s hotel at issue is the Crowne Plaza Beijing International Airport.
The Complainant contends that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. The Complainant has never assigned, granted, licensed, sold, transferred or in any way authorized the Respondent to register or use the CROWNE PLAZA trademark in any manner.
The Respondent has not registered any trademark corresponding to the disputed domain name or the Complainant’s mark. Neither is there any indication that the Respondent is commonly known by the disputed domain name nor has used, or made preparations to use, the disputed domain name or any name corresponding to the disputed domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services.
The Complainant contends that the disputed domain name has been registered and used in bad faith by the Respondent.
The Complainant contends that the Respondent’s motive in registering the disputed domain name must have been to disrupt the Complainant’s relationship with its customers or potential customers or attempt to attract Internet users for potential gain. Further, the use of the disputed domain name in connection with a website that falsely appears to be an official website of or otherwise affiliated with the Complainant and its Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing, without permission or consent of the Complainant, constitutes bad faith.
The Complainant further contends that the Respondent should be regarded as a competitor of the Complainant because, like the Complainant, the Respondent is offering hotel services. By using the disputed domain name in connection with a website that offers hotel services in competition with the Complainant, the Respondent aims to profit from the Complainant’s renowned trademark by attracting Internet users. The confusion created by the disputed domain name makes potential customers choose services other than the Complainant’s, thereby disrupting the Complainant’s business, and this constitutes bad faith in violation of the Policy.
The Respondent did not reply to the Complainant’s contentions.
The Complainant has the burden of proving each of the following three elements under paragraph 4(a) of the Policy in order to be entitled to a transfer of the disputed domain name:
(i) that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights; and
(ii) that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and
(iii) that the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
Based on the evidence adduced by the Complainant, the Panel finds that the Complainant has established its rights in the CROWNE PLAZA trademark. The CROWNE PLAZA trademark has been used extensively for several decades around the world and has been registered in numerous countries, as mentioned above, including China. This Panel is satisfied that the Complainant has acquired rights in the mark.
The Panel further accepts and finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark. The threshold test for confusing similarity under the Policy involves a comparison between the trademark and the disputed domain name to determine the likelihood of Internet user confusion. In order to satisfy this test, the relevant trademark would generally need to be recognizable as such within the disputed domain name, with the addition of common, dictionary, descriptive, or negative terms typically being regarded as insufficient to prevent threshold Internet user confusion.
In this Panel’s view, this threshold test is satisfied. The disputed domain name reproduces the CROWNE PLAZA trademark in its entirety. The addition of the abbreviation “lk” and the generic or descriptive word “hotel” is insufficient to avoid a finding of confusing similarity. See e.g., Six Continents Hotels, Inc., v. Bunjong Chaiviriyawong, WIPO Case No. D2013-1942 (transfer of <goldencrownplazahotel.com>) (“the word ‘hotel’ clearly relates to the Complainant’s field of activity, for which the CROWNE PLAZA Trademark is registered and has been used in connection with or can be viewed as being associated therewith”); Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Domains By Proxy, LLC, DomainsByProxy.com / Peiyan Yao, WIPO Case No. D2013-0660 (transfer of <hotelindigoshanghai.com>); Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Daniel Kirchhof, Unister GmbH, WIPO Case No. D2010-1960 (transfer of, inter alia, <hotel-indigo-at-galleria.com>, <hotel-indigo-miami-lakes.com>, <hotel-indigo-rahway.com> and <hotel-indigo-sarasota.com>); Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Trasporto di Networ and Pro Intel, WIPO Case No. D2004-0246 (transfer of, inter alia, <holidayinnexpresshotels.com> and <hollidayinnhotels.com>). There have been a number of other decisions to the same or similar effect in relation to the addition of generic or descriptive words, as for example, Wikimedia Foundation Inc. v. commens, Nan Jiang, WIPO Case No. D2009-1699 (“[t]he weight of authority of past panel decisions have established that a domain name incorporating a trademark in its entirety with the addition of non-distinctive prefixes or suffixes is generally not distinguishable from the trademark”).
This Panel accordingly finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark in which the Complainant has rights.
The Panel finds and accepts on the evidence that there is no relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent of any kind. The Complainant has not assigned, granted, licensed, sold, transferred or in any way authorized the Respondent to register or use the CROWNE PLAZA trademark in any manner. The Panel accepts that absent any other evidence to the contrary, this fact is sufficient to establish that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, as has been found by other panels: see Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. IQ Management Corporation, WIPO Case No. D2004-0272; Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Patrick Ory, WIPO Case No. D2003-0098 (“There is no evidence of any commercial relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent which would entitle the Respondent to the mark. Consequently, the Panel concludes that the Respondent has no rights nor legitimate interests in the Domain Name given there exists no relationship between the Complainant and the Respondent that would give rise to any license, permission or authorization by which the Respondent could own or use the Domain Name.”).
Furthermore, the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name in connection with a website that falsely appears to be an official website for, or otherwise affiliated with, Complainant and Complainant’s Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing, without permission or consent of Complainant and in circumstances where such use is to compete unfairly with the Complainant simply cannot be regarded as a bona fide offering of goods or services: see e.g., Six Continents Hotels, Inc., v. Bunjong Chaiviriyawong, WIPO Case No. D2013-1942 (“the use of the website to promote services arguably competitive to, and certainly related to the Complainant’s activity [using the Crowne Plaza Trademark], can in no way constitute a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the disputed domain name in this case”).
The Respondent has not submitted a Response to the amended Complaint to rebut the Complainant’s assertions and has not demonstrated any rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.
Accordingly, the Panel finds that paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy has been satisfied.
The evidence on record clearly demonstrates that the Respondent is not affiliated with the Complainant and has no license or other authorization to use the Complainant’s trademark.
The incorporation of the trademark in question in its entirety as part of the disputed domain name is on its own an indication of bad faith. The fact that the disputed domain name was used for a website that gave the false and misleading impression that the Respondent’s website was an official website of the Complainant or its Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing, when that was not the case, and was obviously designed to intentionally attempt to attract for commercial gain Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion, and as it was designed to compete with the Complainant’s business or services it further establishes the Respondent’s bad faith: see e.g., Arla Foods Amba v. Jucco Holdings, WIPO Case No. D2006-0409 (“the practice of registering a domain name and using it to redirect a user to a website which is used for the sale of competing services constitutes evidence of registering and using a trademark in bad faith”).
In this case, the Complainant’s trademark was and is well-known and by reason of its reputation must have been known to the Respondent. The addition by the Respondent of the letters “lk” to the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA as part of the disputed domain name, which the Complainant contends is an abbreviation for “Lin Kong,” and which in the Chinese language connotes or suggests “near airport” and in circumstances where the Complainant operates a hotel near the airport called the Crowne Plaza Beijing International Airport, is clear evidence of and reinforces this Panel’s conclusion of the Respondent’s intention to attract for commercial gain Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion and a web of deception. The Panel has little hesitation for concluding that this constitutes bad faith registration and use.
The Panel finds that the registration and use of the disputed domain name in the above circumstances was primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of the Complainant: see the panel’s finding in Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. NA InterMos, WIPO Case No. D2006-1313 where the Respondent “intentionally uses the domain name… aiming to profit from Complainant’s renowned trademark by attracting Internet users. The confusion created by the domain name makes potential customers to choose other services than the Complainant’s, disrupting Complainant’s business”, which constituted bad faith in violation of the Policy.
Based on the evidence submitted by the Complainant and having regard to all the relevant circumstances, the Panel accepts the Complainant’s contentions that the disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy.
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 <crowneplazalkhotel.com> be transferred to the Complainant.
Richard Tan
Sole Panelist
Date: July 20, 2015