A Danish businessman, Joachim Bruss-Jensen, had a falling out with a business partner, who turned around and registered JOACHIMBRUSS-JENSEN.COM and BRUSS-JENSEN.COM.  While the registrant’s actions appear to satisfy elements two and three of the UDRP, absence of bona fide interest, and bad faith, complainant failed in this UDRP, as he could not show tradmeark use of his personal name.

Two thoughts – to those who need to set up personal corporations, they may want to forego using a cute name and instead consider using their personal name in their corporate name.  Use of a personal name in this form has the added advantage of possibly creating rights under Article 8 of the Paris Convention.

The second thought : one hardcore critic of the UDRP has made the point that it gives preferential treatment to one class of names alone – trademarks.  A fraternal organization, for example, can have its name cybersquatted and it isn’t eligible for protection under the UDRP. This case shows that to be true -why doesn’t this businessman have a quick and affordable remedy?  However that isn’t an argument against the UDRP – it’s an argument for expanding the UDRP to include protection for personal and other names.