Uniregistry, Corp just beat back an objection from Google’s Charleston Road Registry (CRR) Inc. on the new gTLD .cars in a decision handed down by the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (“ICDR”)
CRR objected to Unregistry application for .cars as on the basis of String Confusion to its own application for .car and wanted the two applications to be placed into the same contention set which would have forced Uniregsitry into an auction with Google.
This panel was aware that a previous ruling of another panel; Charleston Road Registry Inc. v. Koko Castle, LLC, In that matter, the Expert held that the new gTLD string applied for and objected to, namely , was not confusingly similar to the gTLD applied for in the same application round by the Objector, who is also the Objector in the instant proceeding.
The panelist specifically acknowledged that if he didn’t follow the ruling in Koko:
“what could result was It was submitted that those consequences were that there would be “two contention sets- (a) one set for .CARS applications only, and (b) one set for a mix of .CAR and .CARS applications”
“The result of the ICANN auction in that circumstance could produce the paradoxical result of two prevailing .CARS TLD applications from the ICANN contention auctions in those two sets, and there is no provision in the ICANN TLD process to address that circumstance. Conflicting results from string contention panels would further bring the consistency and legitimacy of the policy into question.”
However the expert dismissed that argument and decide to rule on the objection independently on its merit.
“The Expert declines to dispose of the instant proceeding by automatically following the determination in Charleston Road Registry Inc. v. Koko Castle, LLC, (supra) and will proceed to make an independent determination on the merits in the instant string confusion objection.”
“It is difficult for the Expert to decide how ICANN might deal with the potential conflicts that the Applicant contends will arise, but the process is ICANN’s, it has control over the entirety of the process, it seems to have contemplated that some such problem may arise during the process and it …
