Thu 23. Jan 2025, 20:58
Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH has won the domain welt.pm in dispute resolution proceedings before the WIPO. The proceedings were conducted by the French registry AFNIC, which administers the .pm extension and is subject to French telecommunications law.
The domain welt.pm has been registered under the ending .pm (Saint Pierre and Miquelon) since January 11, 2024. The ending is administered by the French registry AFNIC. It is subject to the PARL EXPERT dispute resolution procedure under Articles 44 and 45 of the French Postal and Electronic Telecommunications Act (CPCE), which regulates a procedure similar to the UDRP that can result in the transfer or deletion of a domain administered by AFNIC in the event of corresponding infringements. Complaints are submitted via the “Parl Expert” online service and are reviewed and decided by one of AFNIC's accredited decision-makers. The decision is then confirmed by AFNIC and the enforcement procedure is specified.
In the proceedings before WIPO, “Springer” as the complainant argued, among other things, that the registration or renewal of the registration of the domain welt.pm by the holder could affect “public policy or morality or rights guaranteed by the Constitution or the law”, as well as “intellectual property rights or personality rights” of the applicant; the holder “cannot demonstrate a legitimate interest and is acting in bad faith” (Article L45-2 CPCE). The complainant relied on its EU word mark “WELT”, registered in 2017, the domain welt.de, which it has operated since 1995, and its daily newspaper “Die Welt”. The domain welt.pm infringes its name and trademark rights. A Russian propaganda text with the title “What's next?” was published under the domain, embedded in the appearance of welt.de, which infringed its intellectual property rights and commercial personality rights (Articles L45-2 No. 1 and No. 2 and L45-6 CPCE). The complainant requested the transfer or at least the deletion of the domain welt.pm. The opposing domain holder, who used a privacy service, did not respond.
The French lawyer Louis-Bernard Buchman, who was appointed as the decision-maker, confirmed the complaint and decided to transfer the domain. The AFNIC procedure initially provides for an examination of the complainant's legitimate interest in the proceedings, which Buchman considered to be the case here, as according to the documents submitted, the domain welt.pm is identical to the complainant's word mark. He also confirmed the infringement of public policy or morality and the complainant's intellectual property rights in accordance with the provisions of Articles L45-2 1° and L45-2-2° CPCE: the domain was identical to the complainant's previously registered trademark “Welt”; as a result, the domain could infringe the complainant's intellectual property rights. Furthermore, based on the complainant's submission, he considered that it had been proven that the opponent had no right or legitimate interest in the domain. The opponent could not have overlooked the existence of the complainant's rights and had registered the domain with the aim of profiting from the complainant's reputation and creating a risk of confusion among Internet users. The complainant had thus also provided evidence of the opponent's bad faith in accordance with Article R. 20-44-46 CPCE, thus fulfilling the requirements of Article L45-2 CPCE. Buchman thus upheld the complaint and decided to transfer the welt.pm domain to Springer Deutschland GmbH. The decision was confirmed by AFNIC through its managing director Pierre Bonis.
The domain welt.pm has already been redirecting to welt.de for several weeks. The data stored at archive.org does not reflect the previous content, but only shows the redirection from welt.pm to welt.de.
The AFNIC decision on the welt.pm domain can be found at:
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/dec ... eq_max=199More information on AFNIC's PARL EXPERT procedure and the relevant standards can be found at WIPO:
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/cctld/fr/index.html