WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

Coloplast A/S v. Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 1245064211 / Hillary J Walton

Case No. D2020-0987

1. The Parties

The Complainant is Coloplast A/S, Denmark, represented internally.

The Respondent is Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 1245064211, Canada / Hillary J Walton, United States of America.

2. The Domain Name and Registrar

The disputed domain name <coloplastcareer.com> (the “Disputed Domain Name”) is registered with Google LLC (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on April 22, 2020. On April 22, 2020, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the Disputed Domain Name. On April 22, 2020, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response disclosing registrant and contact information for the Disputed Domain Name which differed from the named Respondent and contact information in the Complaint. The Center sent an email communication to the Complainant on April 28, 2020 providing the registrant and contact information disclosed by the Registrar, and inviting the Complainant to submit an amendment to the Complaint. The Complainant filed an amendment to the Complaint on April 29, 2020.

The Center verified that the Complaint together with the amendment to 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 April 30, 2020. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was May 20, 2020. The Respondent did not submit any response. Accordingly, the Center notified the Respondent’s default on May 21, 2020.

The Center appointed Nick J. Gardner as the sole panelist in this matter on May 27, 2020. 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 Complaint is remarkably short of information. It would appear (see Coloplast A/S v. Edith Lounsberry, WIPO Case No. D2018-1778 and Coloplast A/S v. Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 1242178062 / Hillary Washington, WIPO Case No. D2018-2372) the Complainant is a Danish company that has operated since the 1950s. Today, the Complainant's business includes ostomy care, continence care, wound & skin care and interventional urology. The Complainant operates globally, with about 11,000 people employed.

The Complainant owns a registered trademark for COLOPLAST - International trademark registration No. 883011, registered on May 26, 2005 (the “COLOPLAST trademark”).

The Disputed Domain Name was registered on July 14, 2019. There is no evidence before the Panel of it having been used in any way.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

The Complainant’s contentions can be summarized as follows.

The Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to the COLOPLAST trademark.

The Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the term “Coloplast”.

The Disputed Domain Name was registered and is being used in bad faith. In this regard the Complainant says “The Respondent have not responded to the Cease & Desist letter sent on July 16, 2019. See Annex 3” but have not provided a copy of the letter in question – Annex 3 to the Complaint is just a covering email without its attachment.

B. Respondent

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

6. Discussion and Findings

Preliminary Matters

The Panel notes that no communication has been received from the Respondent. However, given the Complaint and Written Notice were sent to the relevant addresses disclosed by the Registrar, then the Panel considers that this satisfies the requirement in paragraph 2(a) of the UDRP Rules to “employ reasonably available means calculated to achieve actual notice”. Accordingly, the Panel considers it is able to proceed to determine this Complaint and to draw inferences from the Respondent’s failure to file any Response. While the Respondent’s failure to file a Response does not automatically result in a decision in favor of the Complainant, the Panel may draw appropriate inferences from the Respondent’s default (see, e.g., Verner Panton Design v. Fontana di Luce Corp, WIPO Case No. D2012-1909).

The Panel also notes this is a case where one Respondent (“Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 1245064211”) appears to be a privacy or proxy service.

The Panel in this case adopts the approach of most UDRP panels, as outlined in WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”) at section 4.4.5, as follows:

“Panel discretion

In all cases involving a privacy or proxy service and irrespective of the disclosure of any underlying registrant, the appointed panel retains discretion to determine the respondent against which the case should proceed.

Depending on the facts and circumstances of a particular case, e.g., where a timely disclosure is made, and there is no indication of a relationship beyond the provision of privacy or proxy registration services, a panel may find it appropriate to apply its discretion to record only the underlying registrant as the named respondent. On the other hand, e.g., where there is no clear disclosure, or there is some indication that the privacy or proxy provider is somehow related to the underlying registrant or use of the particular domain name, a panel may find it appropriate to record both the privacy or proxy service and any nominally underlying registrant as the named respondent.”

In the present case the Panel considers the substantive Respondent to be Hillary J Walton and references to the Respondent are to that person.

Substantive Matters

To succeed, in accordance with paragraph 4(a) of the Policy, the Complainant must satisfy the Panel that:

(i) the Disputed Domain Name is identical with or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;

(ii) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name;

(iii) the Disputed Domain Name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

A. Identical or Confusingly Similar

The Complainant has rights in the COLOPLAST trademark. The Panel finds the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to this trademark. Previous UDRP panels have consistently held that domain names are identical or confusingly similar to a trademark for purposes of the Policy “when the domain name includes the trademark, or a confusingly similar approximation, regardless of the other terms in the domain name” (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Richard MacLeod d/b/a For Sale, WIPO Case No. D2000-0662). It is established in WIPO Overview 3.0 at section 1.7 that, where a domain name incorporates the entirety a mark, or where at least a dominant feature of a mark is recognizable in a disputed domain name, the disputed domain name is considered to be confusingly similar to the mark.

It is also established that the addition of a dictionary word (such as here “career”) to a disputed domain name has little, if any, effect on a determination of confusing similarity between the domain name and the mark (Quixtar Investments, Inc. v. Dennis Hoffman, WIPO Case No. D2000-0253); furthermore, mere addition of a generic or descriptive term does not prevent a finding of confusing similarity under the first element (PRL USA Holdings, Inc. v. Spiral Matrix, WIPO Case No. D2006-0189).

It is also well established that the generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”), in this case “.com”, does not affect the Disputed Domain Name for the purpose of determining whether it is identical or confusingly similar. See, for example, Rollerblade, Inc. v. Chris McCrady, WIPO Case No. D2000-0429.

Accordingly the Panel finds that the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to the Complainant’s trademark and hence the first condition of paragraph 4(a) of the Policy has been fulfilled.

B. Rights or Legitimate Interests

Paragraph 4(c) of the Policy provides a list of circumstances any of which is sufficient to demonstrate that a respondent has rights or legitimate interests in a domain name:

(i) before any notice to the respondent of the dispute, use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services; or

(ii) the respondent has been commonly known by the domain name, even if the respondent has acquired no trademark or service mark rights; or

(iii) the respondent is making a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name, without intent for commercial gain to misleadingly divert consumers or to tarnish the trademark or service mark at issue.

None of these apply in the present circumstances. The Panel infers that the Complainant has not authorised, licensed, or permitted the Respondent to register or use the Disputed Domain Name or to use COLOPLAST trademark. The Complainant has prior rights in the COLOPLAST trademark which precede the Respondent’s acquisition of the Disputed Domain Name. The Complainant has therefore established a prima facie case that the Respondent does not have any rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name and thereby the burden of production shifts to the Respondent to produce evidence demonstrating rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name (see, for example, Do The Hustle, LLC v. Tropic Web, WIPO Case No. D2000-0624; Croatia Airlines d.d. v. Modern Empire Internet Ltd., WIPO Case No. D2003-0455).

The Panel finds that the Respondent has failed to produce any evidence to establish her rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name. Accordingly the Panel finds the Respondent has no rights or any legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name and the second condition of paragraph 4(a) of the Policy has been fulfilled.

C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

Under paragraph 4(b) of the Policy a non-exhaustive list of factors evidencing registration and use in bad faith comprises:

(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or

(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or

(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on-line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.

In the present circumstances the Panel cannot clearly determine which, if any, of the above factors may apply. However that list is non-exhaustive. So far as the Panel is aware “coloplast” is a coined term with no meaning other than in relation to the Complainant and its products. The Panel cannot conceive of a use for the Disputed Domain Name which would be legitimate. Further in the Panel’s experience domain names which combine a distinctive trademark with words such as “employment” or “career” are commonly used to support some form of deceptive practice, typically “phishing” for personal data or fraudulent recruitment scams. Clearly if the Respondent had a case as to innocent registration she could have advanced it by filing a response. She manifestly, for whatever reason, chose to acquire a domain name which she must have known included what is in substance the name of the Complainant. In all the circumstances the Panel concludes that the limited facts before it raise an inference that the registration was in bad faith.

On the evidence before the Panel the Respondent has made no use of the Disputed Domain Name. In the circumstances of this case the Panel adopts the approach set out in the WIPO Overview 3.0 at 3.3 as follows:

“Can the ‘passive holding’ or non-use of a domain name support a finding of bad faith?

From the inception of the UDRP, panelists have found that the non-use of a domain name (including a blank or ‘coming soon’ page) would not prevent a finding of bad faith under the doctrine of passive holding.

While panelists will look at the totality of the circumstances in each case, factors that have been considered relevant in applying the passive holding doctrine include: (i) the degree of distinctiveness or reputation of the complainant’s mark, (ii) the failure of the respondent to submit a response or to provide any evidence of actual or contemplated good-faith use, (iii) the respondent’s concealing its identity or use of false contact details (noted to be in breach of its registration agreement), and (iv) the implausibility of any good faith use to which the domain name may be put”.

Overall it does not generally matter that the Respondent has not as yet used the Disputed Domain Name. “Passive holding” can itself amount to bad faith registration and use where the holding involves a domain name deliberately chosen because of its association with the Complainant. See Telstra Corporation Limited v. Nuclear Marshmallows, WIPO Case No. D2000-0003, Jupiters Limited v. Aaron Hall, WIPO Case No. D2000-0574, Ladbroke Group Plc v. Sonoma International LDC, WIPO Case No. D2002-0131, Westdev Limited v. Private Data, WIPO Case No. D2007-1903; Malayan Banking Berhad v. Beauty, Success & Truth International, WIPO Case No. D2008-1393, and Intel Corporation v. The Pentium Group, WIPO Case No. D2009-0273.

Accordingly, and applying the principles in the above noted UDRP decisions the Panel finds that the Disputed Domain Name has been registered and is being used in bad faith. This is particularly so given that the Respondent has not filed a Response and hence has not availed herself of the opportunity to present any case of good faith that she might have. The Panel infers that none exists.

Accordingly the third condition of paragraph 4(a) of the Policy has been fulfilled

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 Name <coloplastcareer.com> be transferred to the Complainant.

Nick J. Gardner
Sole Panelist
Date: June 8, 2020