By Steve Levy
When it comes to domain disputes, some cases are complicated but many are dead simple. Typosquatting usually falls into that second category. If you register a domain name that’s just a minor misspelling of a famous trademark, you’re already starting off with a strike against you.
A recent decision is a perfect example. The disputed domain name eriscson.com wasn’t some creative play on the Complainant’s ERICSSON brand or a coincidental overlap of dictionary words. It was a straight-up typo of the trademark, one that a casual user might miss when typing too fast or hitting the wrong key. In UDRP lingo this is called “typosquatting” and it’s treated as a red flag. If your domain is basically a well-known trademark with a letter swapped, dropped, or added, you’re not fooling anyone. The UDRP sees that as inherently confusingly similar, and that’s usually enough to satisfy the first element of the Policy (which, in any event, has a rather low bar and is considered a threshold issue).
What made the eriscson.com case even more straightforward is that the trademark wasn’t obscure. We’re talking about a famous brand, the kind that has been around long enough and used widely enough that the Respondent can’t realistically claim it had never heard of it. When a mark is that recognizable, panels are quick to infer that the registrant knew exactly what they were doing. You typically don’t “accidentally” register a typo of a famous brand.
Then there’s the use, or rather, the non-use, of the domain name. Instead of hosting an actual website, the domain displayed a generic notice about pending WhoIs verification. Panels consistently treat this kind of placeholder as the functional equivalent of doing nothing with the domain at all. And under the UDRP, passive holding can support a finding of bad faith, especially when the domain is a typo of a well-known mark. The logic is simple: if you’re sitting on a confusingly similar domain name with no legitimate purpose, the most likely explanation is that you’re waiting for an opportunity to exploit it. The Respondent’s default in this case also contributed to this conclusion since it never showed up to provide a defense or alternative explanation for its actions.
Put all of that together, a famous trademark, a clear misspelling, and a domain name that isn’t being used for anything legitimate, and the outcome is rather predictable. The panel ordered the eriscson.comdomain transferred to the brand owner, reinforcing once again that typosquatting is one of the fastest ways to lose a UDRP case.