WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center
ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. NUCOM, Domain Name Brokers; UnderWater Ecology Club; United Women of the East Coast; Union of Wellington Rugby Football; Ukko Wosh; Universal Wireless Sound Project; Udo�s World Society of Philosophers; Ursula Walters; Super Web Services; Uri William Platt
Case No. D2002-0981
1. The Parties
The Complainant is The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, Madison, Wisconsin 53706of United States of America, represented by Christopher L. Ashley of United States of America.
The Respondent is NUCOM, Domain Name Brokers of Inverness, Scotland IV1 1LD, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; UnderWater Ecology Club of Zagreb, 10090 Croatia, United Women of the East Coast of Durban, KwaZulu Natal 4056, South Africa; Union of Wellington Rugby Football, of Wellington, New Zealand; UkkoWosh, of Helsinki, Finland; Universal Wireless Sound Project, of Amsterdam, Netherlands; Udo�s World Society of Philosophers of Zurich, Switzerland, Ursula Walters, Super Web Services of Malta, Malta; Uri William Platt of Tel Aviv, 63113 Israel.
2. The Domain Names and Registrar
The disputed domain names are:
They are registered with iH Inc. d/b/a DotR, 13205 SW 137th Ave, Suite #133, Miami, FL 33186.
3. Procedural History
The Complaint against NUCOM alone was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the "Center") on October 22, 2002. On October 23, 2002, the Center transmitted by email to iH Inc. d/b/a DotR a request for registrar verification in connection with the domain names at issue.
On October 28, 2002, iH Inc. d/b/a DotR transmitted by email to the Center its response, advising that NUCOM was the previous registrant of the domain names and providing details of the current registrants.
In response to an email notification by the Center on November 5, 2002, that the Complaint was administratively deficient, the Complainant filed an amendment to the Complaint on November 8, 2002.
The Center verified that the Complaint, together with the amendment to the Complaint, satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Policy"), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Rules"), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the "Supplemental Rules").
In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2(a) and 4(a), the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on November 18, 2002. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5(a), the due date for Response was December 8, 2002. The Response was filed with the Center on December 7, 2002.
The Center appointed Staniforth Ricketson as the sole panelist in this matter on December 17, 2002. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. The Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.
On December 17, 2002, the Complainant filed supplementary material with the Center, requesting that the Panel take this into account in making its decision. In Administrative Panel Procedural Order No 1 dated December 20, 2002, the Panel allowed this filing, subject to the Respondents being given three days from this date to file any submissions that they might wish to make in relation to the Complainant�s supplementary filing. By the same order, the Panel also exercised its power under paragraph 12 of the Rules to request from the Complainant details of the service marks to which it referred in its amended Complaint.
On December 23, 2002, the Center received a response from the Respondent NUCOM to the Complainant�s supplemental filing, and on December 24, 2002, received a response from the Complainant concerning the details of the service marks requested in Procedural Order No 1.
4. Factual Background
The Complainant is the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System, an entity of the government of the State of Wisconsin located in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. According to the Complaint, the Board is the governing body for 13 universities, 13 colleges and a state wide co-operative extension program. There are over 157,000 enrolled students.
According to the Complaint, the disputed domain names are associated with six universities of the University of Wisconsin System. These are: University of Wisconsin � Eau Claire (UWEC), founded 1916; University of Wisconsin � River Falls (UWRF), founded 1874; University of Wisconsin � Stevens Point (UWSP), founded 1894; University of Wisconsin � Oshkosh (UWOSH), founded 1871; University of Wisconsin � Platteville (UWPLATT), founded 1866; and University of Wisconsin � Superior (UWSUPERIOR), founded 1893.
The Complainant has registered domain names in the .EDU domain for , , , , and . It appears further that this is a form of designation for its other campuses that have had EDU domain names registered, ie the first letters are UW followed by an abbreviation of the name of the campus and then .EDU. These registrations were made between 1989 and 1992.
The First Respondent NUCOM was the registrant of the disputed domains in the ".com" and ".org" domains until August 6, 2002. Thereafter, the registrants are as listed above. It will be observed that each of the Second to Ninth Registrants/Respondents bear designations which accord with each of the domain names, eg Under Water Ecology Club is the registrant of , United Women of the East Coast is the registrant of , the Union of Wellington Rugby Football is the registrant of , and so on.
5. Parties� Contentions
A. Complainant
Notwithstanding the changes in registrants on August 6, 2002, the Complainant alleges that the domain names remain under the control of the First Respondent NUCOM. In support of this contention, the Complainant refers to the fact that the Whois entries for each of the disputed domain names was changed on the same date (August 6, 2002) and that the domain name servers for each of the names remained the same both before and after these transfers occurred (Complaint, paragraph 2). Each disputed domain name returns a blank page with a single email link (Complaint, Annex F), and the source code for each page is identical except for the