A Bulgarian Company Sanctioned in the Amount of EUR 49 300 for the Act of Copying a Domain Name of an American Corporation
The Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) established an act of infringement under Art. 35, par. 3 of the Protection of Competition Act, committed by SB Group EAD, imposed a penalty in the amount of BGN 96 450 and ordered immediate termination of the infringement.
The proceeding was initiated at the request of Navteq Corporation, USA, one of the leaders on the world market of navigation systems and software, which advertises its activity via the domain www.navteq.com, with a registration dating back to 2003.
On its part, the company SB Group EAD is engaged in providing geodesic and cartographic services, trade with devices for personal and auto navigation, under the mark “Naviteq”. The company registered the domain www.naviteq.net in 2005.
The CPC deems that, regardless of the fact that the first part of the domain of SB Group EAD coincides with the word element of its registered combined mark “Naviteq”, the choice and use of a domain name, belonging to an established world market leader, creates actual prerequisites for the occurrence of confusion on the part of the consumer.
The CPC rejects the defendant’s argument that the mark, and respectively the domain name www.naviteq.net, originate from the generic name of the products – “navigation technologies”. In both domains, the final letter is q, not ch, the latter being the grammatically logical combination of letters. This spelling specificity of the used name “naviteq” is indicative of the registration of the domain name in bad faith. Furthermore, the defendant uses on the home page of the website only the name of its trademark.
Source: Commission for Protection of Competition
