If people start calling a company sh*t, does it mean that company is now entitled to sh*t.com?
A trademark is whatever symbol, word, image, etc. that consumers use to differentiate competitive goods or services in the relevant marketplace.
McDonalds didn't start out calling itself things like "McD's" or "Mickey Dees" and other things that consumers started calling it, and people adopted.
Coca-Cola didn't start out calling itself the shortened "Coke" either.
Those are things that, yes, "people started calling" McDonalds and Coca-Cola, and which were then picked up by the mark owners. It's the best sort of organic branding, because it originates with the consumers themselves.
If consumers adopt their own brand for your stuff, that is trademark gold, since you don't have to put your own effort into promoting that brand. So, absolutely, McDonalds has jumped on "McD's" and "Mickey Dees" just as Coca-Cola adopted "Coke" -
from what their own consumers started calling those brands.
One failed UDRP claim of this type arose from the apparent reputation of "Canadian Tire" stores as "Crappy Tire":
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-0383.html
"Complainant submits that Canadian Tire is also colloquially referred to or known as "Crappy Tire". The term "Crappy Tire" is a slang expression derived from the Canadian Tire trade marks. Generally, the usage does not have a negative connotation but is an impertinent reference to a mass merchandiser."
The really weird thing about this thread is the apparent mass delusion that "Lambo" is not immediately recognizable as what people all over the world call Lamborghini. Furthermore, yes, Lamborghini has registered marks for "LAMBO" long pre-dating the Respondent's registration of the domain name (posted upthread).
One good rule of thumb in predicting the outcome of UDRP disputes, or determining whether it is going to be an uphill battle, is the question "did I correctly guess the complainant from the domain name before looking at the case"?
Be real. Yes, the term "Lambo" has some minor incidental significance as something else, but it is very well known as a reference to Lamborghini. Trademarks are not all created equal. The stronger an association with one particular party, the stronger the mark. The phrase "wen Lambo" is a common in-joke in the NFT space, and it doesn't take more than a Google search to immediately grasp the strength of that association.
Now, sure, if someone can show that they are commonly known as the domain name in question, that is an absolute UDRP defense. For example, Mr. A.R. Mani kept Armani.com in a dispute with the obvious complainant:
G. A. Modefine S.A. v. A.R. Mani
Case No. D2001-0537
https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/html/2001/d2001-0537.html
"The Respondent's full name is Anand Ramnath Mani. His Finnish birth certificate could not be located but this would likely have confirmed his parents names but not his own. Third party evidence was provided confirming that this was likely to be the case. The certified copy of the Respondent's baptismal certificate and his Canadian Citizenship certificate show that his full name is as pleaded."
So, sure, even in a case with a well-known mark like Armani, they could not win against someone who was able to prove that he has long been known as A.R. Mani - and prior to obtaining the domain name.
These cases tend to be fact-sensitive, which I guess is why some people call them unpredictable. But it is amazing to me that the basic framing of the situation here seems to escape a lot of people:
In 2018, someone obtained a well-known colloquial reference, and registered mark, to a luxury automobile company and, when challenged, claimed it was their nickname. They presented no evidence of the existence of that nickname prior to having obtained the domain name, never used the domain name for personal use associated with their nickname (such as even an email address), and simply valued it for millions of dollars. Simply pointing out that one adopted the domain name as a nickname after having bought it, looks more like an after-the-fact justification than a real defense.
Now, obviously, the complainant did a piss-poor job of framing the complaint. For example, they apparently neglected to point out their own registered marks for "LAMBO" pre-dating the respondent's acquisition of the domain name.
Sure, merely having a trademark prior to someone else's domain name does not result in an automatic win. Obviously, there are domain registrants who win UDRP disputes on a regular basis, and nobody wins every battle.
But, the basic outlines of any dispute establish how much evidence is going to be needed. In a case where "some guy registered Lambo.com and wants millions for it", then if you don't recognize that, from the starting block, that's going to be a challenging case, then maybe you need to recalibrate your perception of what makes a winning or losing case. That's obviously going to be a difficult case for the domain registrant to win, absent strong evidence of the nickname defense. My assumption, stated previously in this thread, was that the case was a probable win for the domain registrant, whom I had incorrectly assumed to still be Mr. Lambeth.
Over the course of two decades of these things, I have won some cases that I thought were losers and lost some cases that I thought were winners. But it is important to recognize a case that can go either way depending on what are the specific facts and how they are presented. Obviously, we can't see the complaint and the response in this case and, obviously, at least one panelist found that the complaint didn't make out a sufficient case. The other two panelists took a broader "what do you think is most likely going on here?" gut-level approach to the case.
