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WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

Six Continents Hotels, Inc. v. Qu Pan pan

Case No. D2015-1244

1. The Parties

The Complainant is Six Continents Hotels, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, the 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 Henan Province, Mengzhou, China.

2. The Domain Names and Registrar

The disputed domain names <crowneplazawzhotel.com>, <crowneplazaxynhotel.com>, <crowneplazayyhotel.com>, <crowneplazazgchotel.com> are registered with GoDaddy.com, LLC (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on July 17, 2015. On July 20, 2015, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain names. On July 21, 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. On July 23 and July 24, 2015, the Center received the Complainant’s confirmation of communication to the Respondent and to the Registrar.

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 proceedings commenced on July 28, 2015. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5(a), the due date for Response was August 17, 2015. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on August 18, 2015.

The Center appointed Alistair Payne as the sole panelist in this matter on August 28, 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.

4. Factual Background

The Complainant is one of the world’s largest hotel groups (collectively known as the IHG group) and in particular has operated its CROWNE PLAZA brand of hotels since 1983 in connection with 406 hotels worldwide. It owns 330 registrations in 170 countries or geographic regions worldwide for trade marks that consist of or contain the mark CROWNE PLAZA and in particular United States word mark registration No. 1,297,211 which was registered on September 18, 1984 for CROWNE PLAZA and Chinese trade mark registration No. 2,021,114 for the Chinese translation of the word mark CROWNE PLAZA. The Complainant operates websites for its Crowne Plaza hotels worldwide, including its Chinese hotels at its “www.ihg.com/crownplaza” website.

The Respondent registered each of the disputed domain names on September 11, 2014. Each of the disputed domain names resolves to a website that is associated with a different one of four of the Complainant’s Chinese CROWNE PLAZA hotels.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

The Complainant submits that it owns numerous registered trade mark rights worldwide in its CROWNE PLAZA mark, but in particular United States word mark registration No. 1,297,211 which was registered on September 18, 1984 for CROWNE PLAZA and Chinese trade mark registration No. 2,021,114 for the Chinese translation of the word mark CROWNE PLAZA.

It submits that each of the disputed domain names wholly incorporate its CROWNE PLAZA mark and only differs from its mark by the use of an additional two or three letter geographic abbreviation such as (“wz”, “xyn”, “yy” or “zgc”) and the inclusion of the generic English word “hotel”.

The Complainant submits that the additional letters in each of the disputed domain names is an abbreviation for a geographic indicator, as described below:

- <crowneplazaxynhotel.com>: “XYN” is an abbreviation for “Xin Yun Nan,” meaning “new Yunnan.” In Complainant’s hotel system, this is “Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace” in English.

- <crowneplazawzhotel.com>: “WZ” is an abbreviation for “Wu Zhou,” meaning “five continents.” It is a de-flagged hotel, which used to be “Crowne Plaza Park View Wuzhou” in English.

- <crowneplazayyhotel.com>: “YY” is an abbreviation for “Yi Yuan,” meaning “garden or art.” In Complainant’s hotel system, this is “Crowne Plaza Beijing Wangfujing” in English.

- <crowneplazazgchotel.com>: “ZGC” is an abbreviation for “Zhong Guan Cun,” meaning “Zhongguancun.” In Complainant’s hotel system, this is “Crowne Plaza Beijing Zhongguancun” in English.

The Complainant submits that these letters are a type of “trademark manipulation” that only add to the confusing similarity because each of the letters provides a geographical description related to each of Complainant’s relevant Crowne Plaza hotels. As a consequence the Complainant submits that each of the disputed domain names is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA trade mark.

The Complainant says that it has never assigned, granted, licensed, sold, transferred or in any way authorised the Respondent to register or use the CROWNE PLAZA trade mark in any manner. It further submits that the Respondent has never used, or made preparations to use, any of the disputed domain names or any name corresponding to any of the disputed domain names in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services.

The Complainant submits that the Respondent is using each of the disputed domain names, without permission or consent of Complainant, in connection with a website that falsely appears to be an official website for, or is otherwise affiliated with the Complainant and its Crowne Plaza hotels.

Such use of the disputed domain names in connection with competitive services is not a bona fide offering of goods or services under the Policy and can in no way constitute a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the disputed domain names and therefore the Respondent cannot demonstrate rights or legitimate interests in each of the disputed domain names.

As far as registration in bad faith is concerned the Respondent submits that considering the degree of reputation and renown attaching to the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA mark based on its use worldwide over three decades and the relatively recent registration of the disputed domain names the Complainant submits that the Respondent must have known of its use and rights in the CROWNE PLAZA mark when it registered the disputed domain names. The Complainant says that it is apparent from the Respondent’s use of each of the disputed domain names to resolve to websites that respectively appear to be the Complainant’s own websites that advertise the Complainant’s hotels that the Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain names in bad faith. It submits that the Respondent has sought to confuse Internet users into thinking that they are dealing with the Complainant when in fact the Respondent intends to divert users and to offer them its competing services and that this amounts to evidence of registration and use in bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy and demonstrates that the Respondent has registered each of the disputed domain names primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor in terms of paragraph 4(b)(iii) of the Policy.

B. Respondent

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

6. Discussion and Findings

The disputed domain names are all owned by the Respondent and differ from each other only in so far as the addition of two or three letters which the Complainant asserts is an indication in each case of the geographic location of one of its hotels. The Panel finds that the Complaint is properly brought on a consolidated basis in relation to all four disputed domain names in the interests of efficiency and speedy resolution of the separate complaints made.

A. Identical or Confusingly Similar

The Complainant owns numerous registered trade marks for its CROWNE PLAZA mark including United States word mark registration No. 1,297,211 dating from 1984. Each of the disputed domain names incorporates as a whole the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA mark and in addition incorporates the generic English word hotel and two or three letters of the alphabet which appear to be a geographic indicator for one of the Complainant’s hotels. In the Panel’s opinion neither the inclusion of the word “hotel”, nor the two or three letter geographic indicator, distinguishes each of the disputed domain names from the Complainant’s mark. The dominant element in each of the four disputed domain names is undoubtedly the CROWNE PLAZA mark and people seeing each of the disputed domain names would naturally associate each of them with the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA brand of hotels. Previous panels have found that the fact that a domain name wholly incorporates a complainant’s registered mark is sufficient to establish identity or confusing similarity under the Policy. Six Continent Hotels, Inc. v. The Omnicorp, WIPO Case No. D2005-1249, (quoting Oki Data Americas, Inc. v. ASD, Inc., WIPO Case No. D2001-0903).

As a result the Panel finds that each of the disputed domain names is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s registered CROWNE PLAZA trade mark and the Complaint succeeds under the first element of the Policy.

B. Rights or Legitimate Interests

The Complainant has submitted that it never authorised the Respondent to register each of the disputed domain names and has no affiliation with the Respondent. It says that it does not believe that the Respondent is known by any of the disputed domain names and the fact that each of the disputed domain names takes Internet users to a different website that appears to be for one of the Complainant’s Crowne Plaza hotels based in China indicates that this is not a case in which the Respondent is making a noncommercial or fair use of the disputed domain names, or of the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA mark.

The Complainant has made out a prima facie case that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in any of the disputed domain names and there is nothing in the record to indicate that the Respondent has any rights in the CROWNE PLAZA mark or in any of the disputed domain names or which would otherwise rebut the Complainant’s case. For these reasons and for the additional reasons as outlined below under Part C of the decision concerning bad faith, the Panel finds that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in any of the disputed domain names and the Complaint also succeeds under this element of the Policy.

C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

The Complainant has demonstrated that it has had registered rights in its CROWNE PLAZA mark and has used it in various jurisdictions for approximately three decades. In 2003 it also obtained Chinese trade mark registrations for its CROWNE PLAZA mark in the Chinese language and now operates numerous hotels in China. The disputed domain names were only registered relatively recently in 2014 and it seems to the Panel extremely unlikely that the Respondent could have been unaware of the Complainant’s CROWNE PLAZA mark and rights when it applied for these domain name registrations or that the registrations could have been innocently made.

The overwhelming inference in the Panel’s view is that the Respondent registered each of the disputed domain names in order to divert Internet users seeking each of the Complainant’s respective hotels to the websites maintained by the Respondent. The Panel has no doubt that many people arriving at these websites would be confused and would assume that they were the Complainant’s websites based on the degree of similarity between the parties’ respective websites and the use of the Complainant’s trade marks and pictures of the Complainant’s hotels on each of the Respondent’s sites.

These websites were in no way authorised by the Complainant and although it is not clear from the record, it appears that the scheme was commercially motivated and that the Respondent would then seek to either book Internet users into a different selection of hotels, to subject them to Internet advertising, to benefit through taking booking commissions or to somehow otherwise benefit commercially from the scheme. There is no other credible explanation as to why the Respondent would go to so much trouble to confuse Internet users into thinking that the disputed domain names and the websites to which they resolve were the Complainant’s hotel websites. In this regard the Panel has no difficulty in finding that the requirements of paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy are fulfilled and that this amounts to evidence of registration and use in bad faith for the purposes of the Policy.

Although the Panel finds as discussed that the Respondent’s conduct is clearly demonstrative of bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv) and amounts to exactly the sort of instance of cybersquatting that the Policy was intended to prohibit, the Panel makes no finding in relation to paragraph 4(b)(iii) of the Policy as it is unclear whether the Respondent is a competitor of the Complainant’s, or not, as required by that section.

Accordingly, the Panel finds evidence of both registration and use of each of the disputed domain names in bad faith and that the Complaint succeeds under the third element of the Policy.

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 names <crowneplazawzhotel.com>, <crowneplazaxynhotel.com>, <crowneplazayyhotel.com> and <crowneplazazgchotel.com> be transferred to the Complainant.

Alistair Payne
Sole Panelist
Date: September 11, 2015

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