A US federal judge has ruled against Chatam International, a
company producing a raspberry liqueur under the trade mark
“Chambord”, in a dispute over the rights to the domain name
chambord.com. The name was registered by Bodum, which markets
coffee products under the trade marks “Cafitiere Chambord” and
“Café Chambord Coffee”.
Although the companies sell their products under similar trade
marks, they are not in direct competition since they do not trade
in the same food related products and the marks attach to specified
products only. The judge accepted that a user accessing the web
site chambord.com expecting to find information about the liqueur
may initially be confused.
However, he concluded that this was not sufficient reason to
order the transfer of the domain name, suggesting that internet
users do not always expect their presumptions as to the content or
source of a web site to be correct.
