Eli Lilly recovers hundreds of domain names in UDRP case

Pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly has successfully transferred 368 domain names containing its ‘Cialis’ registered US trademark, which is used for its product treating erectile dysfunction.

The disputed domains contained variations of the ‘Cialis’ mark, such as cialis2sale.com, cialis10pills4free.com and order12cialis.com.

All of the domain names resolved to sites selling generic versions of the Cialis drug that Eli Lilly claimed were counterfeit and not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Eli Lilly filed a complaint with the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) on September 22.

After receiving no response from the respondent, a man called Thomas Michael, Neil Anthony Brown, the sole panellist presiding over the dispute at the NAF, ruled that the domain names should be transferred to the pharma company.

In a final order issued on Thursday, December 10, Brown said Eli Lilly successfully completed the three prongs of a Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy complaint.

Eli Lilly, said Brown, had demonstrated that the domains were confusingly similar to its ‘Cialis’ mark, that the registrant had no legitimate interest in the name and that the domain names were registered in bad faith.