WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

Accor v. Super Privacy Service LTD c/o Dynadot

Case No. D2019-1824

1. The Parties

The Complainant is Accor, France, represented by Dreyfus & associés, France.

The Respondent is Super Privacy Service LTD c/o Dynadot, United States of America (“United States”).

2. The Domain Names and Registrar

The disputed domain names <accorhotels-cn.com> and <accorhotels-com.com> are registered with Dynadot, LLC (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on July 30, 2019. On July 30, 2019, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain names. On July 31, 2019, 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 and 4, the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on August 12, 2019. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was September 1, 2019. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on September 2, 2019.

The Center appointed Jonathan Agmon as the sole panelist in this matter on September 11, 2019. 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, Accor, is an operator of hotels that was founded in 1967. The Complainant operates more than 4,800 hotels worldwide in 100 countries. Examples of hotel chains operated by the Complainant include Fairmont, Raffles, Swissôtel, Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Grand Mercure and Ibis.

The Complainant is the owner of numerous trademarks worldwide for the ACCOR and ACCORHOTELS marks, including, but not limited to the following:

- ACCOR (International Registration No. 742032) registered on August 25, 2000 and designating, inter alia, China, Germany, Egypt, Italy and Russian Federation under the Madrid Protocol;

- ACCORHOTELS (International Registration No. 1103847) registered on December 12, 2011 and designating, inter alia, Australia, China, Russian Federation, Singapore and the United States under the Madrid Protocol; and

- ACCOR (International Registration No. 010248466) registered in the European Union on March 20, 2012.

The Complainant is also the owner of various domain names including <accor.com> and <accorhotels.com>.

The disputed domain names were registered on April 18, 2019 and presently resolve to parking pages with pay-per-click (“PPC”) links.

According to the evidence submitted by the Complainant, the disputed domain name <accorhotels-cn.com> resolved to a parking page with PPC links related to “hotel”. Presently, the disputed domain name <accorhotels-cn.com> resolves to a hotel reservation page bearing the word “Accorhotels”.

On the other hand, according to the evidence submitted by the Complainant, the disputed domain name <accorhotels-com.com> originally redirected to a parking page with PPC links related to “hotel”, but presently resolves to a website in Chinese titled “Altira Macau” after the Complainant sent a notification to the Registrar. This website displays a logo stating “Forbes Travel Guide 2019” and contains contact numbers to make reservations at a hotel named “Macau New Fengfeng Hotel”.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

The Complainant’s contentions include the following:

The Complainant argues that the disputed domain names are confusingly similar to the Complainant’s ACCOR and ACCORHOTELS trademarks and insufficient to avoid any likelihood of confusion as they wholly incorporate the Complainant’s trademarks.

The Complainant also argues that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain names as it has not licensed or permitted the Respondent to use any of its trademarks or register the disputed domain names.

The Complainant further argues that the disputed domain names were registered and are being used in bad faith as the Respondent is using the disputed domain names with the intention to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its websites, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademarks.

For all of the above reasons, the Complainant requests the transfer of the disputed domain names.

B. Respondent

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

6. Discussion and Findings

A. Identical or Confusingly Similar

Paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy requires the Complainant to show that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights.

The Complainant has provided evidence of its numerous trademarks’ registrations in numerous jurisdictions including the United States, where the Respondent seems to be based and registered the disputed domain names.

A registered trademark provides a clear indication that the rights in the mark shown on the trademark certificate belong to its respective owner. The disputed domain names <accorhotels-cn.com> and <accorhotels-com.com> integrate the Complainant’s ACCOR and ACCORHOTELS trademarks in their entirety (see Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Kuchora, Kal, WIPO Case No. D2006-0033; Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. v. Andrew Miller, WIPO Case No. D2008-1345).

The disputed domain name <accorhotels-cn.com> wholly incorporates the Complainant’s ACCORHOTELS trademark and only differs from the ACCORHOTELS trademark by the addition of a hyphen and the letters “cn” that is a common abbreviation for the geographical designation, China. It is well-established where a complainant’s trademark is recognizable within the disputed domain name, the addition of geographical terms would not prevent a finding of confusing similarity (See WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”), section 1.8). Further, the addition of the hyphen and the generic Top-Level Domain “.com” also does not avoid confusing similarity between the Complainant’s trademarks and the disputed domain name (see WIPO Overview of WIPO 3.0, section 1.11).

The other disputed domain name <accorhotels-com.com> also wholly incorporates the Complainant’s ACCORHOTELS trademark and only differs from the ACCORHOTELS trademark by the addition of a hyphen and the letters “com” that does not prevent a finding of confusing similarity. The addition of the generic Top-Level Domain “.com” also does not avoid confusing similarity between the Complainant’s trademarks and the disputed domain name (See WIPO Overview of WIPO 3.0, section 1.11).

In the particular circumstances of the present case, the Panel is of the view that the disputed domain names are identical or confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark in which the Complainant has rights.

B. Rights or Legitimate Interests

Once the complainant establishes a prima facie case that the respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name, the burden of production shifts to the respondent to show that it has rights or legitimate interests in respect to the disputed domain name. (See WIPO Overview 3.0, section 2.1).

In the present case, the Complainant has demonstrated prima facie that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain names and the Respondent has failed to assert any such rights or legitimate interests.

The Complainant has provided evidence that it owns numerous trademark registrations in many jurisdictions long before the disputed domain names were registered and that it has not licensed or otherwise permitted the Respondent to use the Complainant’s trademarks. (See LEGO Juris A/S v. DomainPark Ltd, David Smith, Above.com Domain Privacy, Transure Enterprise Ltd, Host master, WIPO Case No. D2010-0138).

The Complainant has also provided evidence that the Respondent is not commonly known by the disputed domain names. (See WIPO Overview 3.0, section 2.3).

In the present case, the Respondent did not submit a Response to the Complaint and did not provide any explanation or evidence to show rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain names sufficient to rebut the Complainant’s prima facie case.

Accordingly, the Panel finds that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain names.

C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

The Complainant must also show that the Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain names in bad faith (see Policy, paragraph 4(a)(iii)). Paragraph 4(b) of the Policy provides circumstances that may evidence bad faith under paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy.

The Complainant has submitted evidence which shows that the Respondent registered the disputed domain names long after the Complainant’s trademark registrations. According to the evidence filed by the Complainant, the Complainant owned registrations for its ACCOR and ACCORHOTELS trademarks in multiple jurisdictions since 2000 and these registrations were active at the time the Respondent registered the disputed domain names in 2019. The Complainant has also showed evidence that the Complainant enjoys considerable reputation and goodwill worldwide and has significant online presence. Furthermore, the Complainant has shown evidence that a brief search on the Internet of the words “accor” or “accorhotels” would have alerted the Respondent to the presence of the Complainant’s trademarks and domain names. Therefore, the Panel draws the inference that the Respondent knew or should have known about the Complainant’s trademarks and finds it inconceivable that the Respondent could have registered the disputed domain names without knowledge of the Complainant’s trademarks and intention of benefiting from confusion with such trademarks. (See Leite’s Culinaria, Inc. v. Gary Cieara, WIPO Case No. D2014-0041; WIPO Overview 3.0, section 3.2.2)

Furthermore, the disputed domain names are confusingly similar to the Complainant’s ACCORHOTELS trademark which the Panel finds is an attempt by the Respondent to confuse and/or mislead Internet users seeking or expecting the Complainant. Previous UDRP panels ruled that in such circumstances “a likelihood of confusion is presumed, and such confusion will inevitably result in the diversion of Internet traffic from the Complainant’s site to the Respondent’s site” (see Edmunds.com, Inc v. Triple E Holdings Limited, WIPO Case No. D2006-1095). To this end, prior UDRP panels have established that attracting Internet traffic by using a domain name that is identical or confusingly similar to a registered trademark may be evidence of bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the UDRP.

The Complainant has also provided evidence that the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its websites by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademarks that is further indication of the Respondent’s bad faith (see paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy).

At present, the disputed domain name <accorhotels-cn.com> resolves to what appears to be a hotel reservation webpage, which bears the Complainant’s ACCORHOTELS trademark and logo at the top and bottom of the homepage. Unsuspecting Internet users that visit the webpage are likely to be misled into mistaking the disputed domain name as the Complainant’s as the webpage also identifies hotels that are part of the Complainant’s hotel group chain.

The other disputed domain name <accorhotels-com.com> resolves to a Chinese webpage of a Macau hotel, “Altira Macau” which appears to be offering luxury hospitality and entertainment services, that could be a competitor to the Complainant as it is in the same hospitality industry.

In the Panel’s view, both webpages that the disputed domain names resolve to show that the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its websites by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademarks. Such use demonstrates intent on and ultimately execution by the Respondent’s part to specifically target Internet users who may have intended to visit the Complainant’s websites but were instead misled to the Respondent’s websites. Internet users seeking to visit the Complainant’s websites would very likely mistakenly believe that the Respondent is either connected to or associated with the Complainant due to the similarity in services offered. However, no such connection exists, and there is nothing on the Respondent’s websites that would clarify that the Respondent is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Complainant.

Taking these into consideration, the Panel finds that under the particular circumstances of this case, the Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its websites by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademarks under paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy.

Based on the evidence presented to the Panel, including the registration of the disputed domain names after the registration of the Complainant’s trademarks, the confusing similarity between the disputed domain names and the Complainant’s trademarks, the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain names and the failure of the Respondent to submit a response, the Panel concludes that the disputed domain names were registered and are being used in bad faith.

Accordingly, having regard to the circumstances of this particular case, the Panel finds that the Complainant has met its burden under paragraph 4(a)(iii) 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 <accorhotels-cn.com> and <accorhotels-com.com> be transferred to the Complainant.

Jonathan Agmon
Sole Panelist
Date: September 25, 2019