The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has rejected a legal rights objection filed against registration of the term .tunes as a new generic top-level domain (1).
In this case, the applicant for the TLD “.tunes” was Amazon EU Sarl and the objector was DotTunes Ltd.
Two reasons have conducted the panelist to reject the objection.
On the one hand, the objector’s figurative trademark “.TUNES” is phonetically similar to the gTLD “.tunes” but “the word tunes is, however, a generic and descriptive mark when used in relation to music”.
On the other hand, “the objector has produced very little evidence of use of .TUNES in trade or commerce”. The panelist does not consider that consumers seeing the gTLD “.tunes” would relate it to the objector. In the fourth LRO ruling to date, the WIPO panelist ruled that DotTunes’ European Community trademark wasn’t famous enough to warrant rights protection under the LRO.
DotMusic Ltd, another company of the objector’s group has applied for “.music” and also filed objections against all the other applicants for “.music”. Besides, the panelist has outlined that he “is not making findings in relation to distinctiveness of “.music” which is “the subject of other LRO proceedings”. We will continue to keep you posted !
(1) http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/amc/en/domains/lro/docs/lro2013-0065.pdf