The UK department store Harrods has successfully won the rights to
use over 60 internet addresses incorporating the name “Harrods”.
The domain names had been registered by Harrods (Buenos Aires) Ltd,
which formerly operated an official Harrods store in Argentina on
behalf of the UK enterprise.
According to a case report by Newsbytes, the Argentinean Harrods
store opened in 1912. In 1960, Harrods in the UK “disassociated”
itself from the store in Argentina, although the name was used for
the store until 1995. Thereafter, the Argentinean company
registered the disputed “Harrods” domain names.
The Buenos Aires venture argued that it had continued to carry
out various business transactions, which were unconnected to the
running of department stores, using the “Harrods” name. In the
domain name action in a US district court, it argued that these
activities legitimised its registration of addresses including
“harrodsbanking.com” and “harrodsbank.com”.
The court dismissed this argument, ruling that the registrations
had been made in bad faith and were confusingly similar to the
Harrods’ department store trade mark.
