With the emergence and growth of the blockchain domain name market, there has been quite a bit of discussion about domain names with trademarks and famous brand names. There is well-established intellectual property law related to traditional (Web2) domain names, but there are plenty of questions related to decentralized blockchain domain names with famous trademarks in them.

The EnCirca Twitter account posted a link to a comprehensive article about blockchain domain names and trademarks. The article was written by Andrea L. Calvaruso, Matthew Luzadder, Constantine (“Dino”) Koutsoubas, and Kerianne Losier of the law firm Kelley Drye & Warren LLP:

Great primer on blockchain domains from @KelleyDrye law firm! https://t.co/Ms7uJyEmKj

— EnCirca (@EnCirca) June 7, 2022

A UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) against the Edouard.com domain name. The complainant in the UDRP is listed as Edouard Lombard. This is WIPO Case D2022-2065.

Edouard.com was created in 1998 – nearly 25 years ago. The domain name does not currently resolve to an active website, and the Whois record shows “Statutory Masking Enabled” as the domain registrant due to GDPR regulations. Historical Whois records at DomainTools show the domain name was owned by a person named Edouard as recently as May of 2018 before GDPR masking of the Whois record.