The Gong Show was a television talent show on ABC in the late 1970s. Contestants would perform a variety of acts while being judged by a panel of celebrity guests. If a judge found an act particularly bad, they could hit a large gong, abruptly ending the performance.
It’s too bad there isn’t a gigantic gong at the World Intellectual Property Organization! A UDRP was filed against Gong.com at WIPO. It is case #D2025-0500. Without doing much research, I think this UDRP should be a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH).
First and foremost, “gong” is a descriptive term. A gong is a large, flat, circular percussion instrument, typically made of metal, that produces a loud sound when struck with a mallet. That, alone, in my opinion, should be enough to doom this UDRP. However, there is more…