Donuts defeated an objection by Express, LLC brought under WIPO to the new gTLD string .Express in a case published yesterday
I started to write about the decision and it occurred to me that the real story is why didn’t this company just apply for the new gTLD .Express
As I read about the Complainant, Express LLC, it became more and more obvious to me that they missed the boat, like so many brands by failing to spend $185K and apply for their own gTLD if nothing else, to protect their own brand.
Here is some info about the company from the WIPO case:
“The Complainant in the objection to .Express is the owner of registrations for the trademark and service mark EXPRESS in the United States of America and numerous other countries.
“The Complainant operates over 600 retail stores in the USA, Canada, Kuwait, Peru, Panama, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“In 2012, Complainant’s revenues of its “branded goods” worldwide were approximately US $2.15 billion
“In addition to apparel, Complainant’s EXPRESS product line includes watches, shoes, jewelry and perfume.”
Complainant advertises, offers and sells its EXPRESS product line through a commercial Internet website with principal address at <express.com>.
In 2010, 60% of Complainant’s sales were through its ecommerce website.
Complainant has sold over US $ 44 billion in EXPRESS branded goods, and has spent over US $811 million on marketing and advertising the EXPRESS
brand
In addition to the <express.com> domain name, Complainant has registered over 150 domain names incorporating the term EXPRESS, including 99 in open gTLDs, such as expressclothes.com, expressfashion.com and expressjeans.com, and 55 in country code ccTLDs, including expressfashion.co.uk, expressfashion.jp and expressfashion.fr”"
Ok So this is a huge company with over $2 billion in sales in just 2012 and 60% of its sales come from the internet.
The company has sold over $44 Billion in product all under the Express brand and spend $811 Million advertising and promoting the Express brand
Why the hell didn’t this company spend a measly $185,000 to apply for .Express
That is the real question
That is the real issue.
Instead they spent their money objecting to someone else s application which would at best only allowed them to block the new gTLD application of Donuts not take it over.
Lets face it this company missed the boat, someone dropped the ball and now they tried to stop a gTLD application and failed to protect their brand in a space that generates 60% of their revenue.…
