NFT’s craze hasn’t melted down yet. People are still purchasing NFTs for hefty prices and showing them off. Adding to the trend several Sports teams released their won NFTs for their fans. This includes Paris Saint-Germain.
WIPO witnessed an absolutely remarkable dispute for two domain names, namely PSGNFT.com and NFTPSG.com. The Complainant was the popular Spanish Football Club Paris Saint-Germain.
The Complainant claims that it owns several trademarks over the PSG mark. This includes the French trademark registered in 2009 and the EU trademark registered in 2018. The Complainant operates at the domain name PSG.fr.
The Complainant explains that it had announced about the launch of its own NFT with auctions starting from 24 April, 2021. The disputed domain names were registered on June 6, 2021. The Respondent then deployed the domain names for selling NFTs as well.
The Respondent claimed that the terms in use, i.e., PSGNFT or NFTPSG were not trademarked by anyone. The Respondent contests that several other entities (figures above 100) have used the term PSG in their name.
The Panel found that the Second-level domain names in the disputed domain , i.e., NFTPSG and PSGNFT incorporated the PSG trademark. NFT was just being used as suffix and prefix of it. The Respondent also fails to explain as to why it registered the domain name just weeks after PSG released NFTs.
The Respondent had claimed that more than 100 entities used PSG in their names, however the Respondent failed to explain the relationship between those companies and NFT.
The domain name was transferred to the Complainant.
You can read the full case here.
Join the Discussion