A pair of recent intellectual property wins by Kean Miller under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) tracks the busy trend of domain name cases filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The wins further highlight the trend of successful transfers of fraudulent and abusive domain name registrations to its rightful owners (an approximate 88.7% transfer rate[1]). Over 6,000 of these types of domain name cases are predicted to be filed in 2025[2]. These cases predominantly seek to capitalize on a trademark owner’s good name and business reputation in an effort to trick consumers into either purchasing counterfeit products, which are neither made nor licensed by the trademark owner, or providing certain personal or financial information to the bad faith actor for illegal means.

UDRP, which is administered by WIPO, provides the legal framework for efficiently resolving disputes between trademark owners and bad faith domain name registrants in connection with abusive and fraudulent registration and use of internet domain names[3]. These proceedings can provide a much quicker and more cost-effective means of shutting down infringing domains. And, unlike a claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the UDRP has the power and ability to transfer the target domain to the rightful trademark owner. UDRP is utilized across the industry for domain name disputes that meet the following criteria:

(i) the domain name registered by the domain name registrant is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the trademark owner/complainant (the person or entity bringing the complaint) has rights;

(ii) the domain name registrant has no rights or legitimate interests as to the domain name in question; and

(iii) the domain name has been registered and is being used by the registrant in bad faith[4].

Trademark owners/complainants can demonstrate the requisite bad faith by showing:

(i) Circumstances indicating that the domain name was registered or acquired primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name in question to the rightful owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that rightful owner, in exchange for valuable consideration that exceeds the domain name registrant’s out-of-pocket costs for acquiring the name;

(ii) The domain name was registered to prevent the rightful owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that the domain name registrant has engaged in a pattern of such conduct;

(iii) The domain name was registered or acquired mainly for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) By using the domain name, the domain name registrant intentionally attempted to attract internet users to the registrant’s website (or other online location) for financial gain, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the rightful trademark owner as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the registrant’s website or the location of a product or service on the registrant’s website[5].

Of course, this list is not exclusive, and a trademark owner can meet its burden of proof by demonstrating other similar circumstances indicative of bad faith, depending on the facts specific to a particular case.

Kean Miller’s recent wins have been based on claims involving bad faith actors who have registered confusingly similar domain names in an attempt to trade off the goodwill of the rightful trademark owners. At least one went so far as to copy recognizable images and information of the rightful owner, in an effort to redirect internet users to fake listings for the purchase of counterfeit products for commercial gain. Kean Miller has further successfully procured the transfer of a domain name from a registrant attempting to “typosquat” a domain name, a process through which a bad actor seeks to register and use a minimally mis-typed version of a particular well-known domain name in an effort to trick internet users into visiting the registrant’s own site for various illegal and fraudulent means. Kean Miller continues to track these fraudulent domain name trends, and stands ready to support your business against these bad faith actors.

[1] https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58febdfcbf629aa913a85974/t/681117cf705c8635d05d9c90/1745950673053/2025-q1-domain-dispute-digest.pdf.

[2] Id.

[3] https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/guide/#What_is_the_2.

[4] Id.

[5] Id.