Law firm King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has secured the transfer of a domain name it said was set up as part of an “elaborate and fraudulent Nigerian email scam”.
The complaint was filed in September 2017 by KWM at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Arbitration and Mediation Center.
KWM is an international law firm with offices in China, Australia and the UK.
It owns a string of trademarks in the respective countries, including Australian registration number 1,465,539 for the ‘King & Wood Mallesons’ name and 1,465,547 for the ‘KWM’ mark, both registered in 2011.
The domain name in question, kwmallesons.com, did not resolve to any website but was used to create emails to impersonate staff at KWM, according to the ruling.
Sebastian Hughes was appointed sole panellist and redacted the name of the respondent, as there was “uncontested evidence of identity theft” with regard to the owner of the site.
Hughes said that the panel had “no hesitation” in concluding that the registration was used in bad faith, and that by using the ‘KWM Mallesons’ mark in its entirety, the domain was confusingly similar.
He ordered the transfer of the domain to KWM.
KWM, King & Wood Mallesons, domain name, transfer, World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center, WIPO
