Coachella Music Festival, LLC v. John Mercado, FA1904001840140 (Forum, May 27, 2019) / Disputed domain name: chellastore.com

The Complainant is the owner of the well-known Coachella festival. It owns a trademark registration, issued in 2016, for the mark CHELLA.

The Respondent asserted that he intended to use the disputed domain name to set up an online women’s clothing store but never did so. He claimed that growing up, his nickname was “Chelle” and that he modified that name to make it sound more feminine for use in connection with the store.

Coachella challenged the domain name registration. A single-member NAF panel denied the complaint. It found in favor of the Complainant on the first two UDRP elements but did not find that the Respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith.

In the present case, the Panel found that, in contrast to the COACHELLA mark, the Complainant failed to show that its CHELLA mark was sufficiently well-known. All of the Complainant’s exhibits substantiating the well-known character of its mark related to its COACHELLA mark. Since the disputed domain name was considered only to be confusingly similar to Complainant’s CHELLA mark, the Panel found that future active use of the disputed domain name could thus be legitimate without interfering with the Complainant’s marks.

The Panel was also of the opinion that the Complainant did not sufficiently show the Respondent’s constructive knowledge of the COACHELLA or CHELLA marks to evidence bad faith registration of the disputed domain name. Considering that the term “Chella” is used as a personal name or to denote a town in Spain, the Panel found that it was plausible that the disputed domain name was registered in good faith by the Respondent, without any knowledge of or intention to target the Complainant’s marks. Finally, the Panel found that the Respondent had not violated any of the factors listed in Paragraph 4(b) of the UDRP or engaged in any other conduct that would constitute bad faith registration and use under the UDRP.