WIPO D2000-0330 · decided 7 June 2000
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. v. John Zuccarini, The Cupcake Patrol
The parties
- Complainant
- Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
- Respondent
- John Zuccarini, The Cupcake Patrol
What did the panel find on each element?
| Policy paragraph | Finding |
|---|---|
| 4(a)(i) Identical or confusingly similar | The panel found encyclopediabrittanica.com virtually identical to ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, and the three shorter misspellings virtually identical to the BRITANNICA and BRITANNICA.COM marks of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. |
| 4(a)(ii) No rights or legitimate interests | The panel found that John Zuccarini ran no bona fide business under the domains and instead diverted mistyped traffic to earn advertising revenue, which is not legitimate noncommercial or fair use. |
| 4(a)(iii) Registered and used in bad faith | Under paragraph 4(b)(iv), the panel relied on the fame of the BRITANNICA marks, John Zuccarini's history of registering misspelled famous names, a US court injunction against the same conduct and his failure to reply. |
Why does Britannica matter for a complaint today?
In Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. v. John Zuccarini, D2000-0330, decided June 7, 2000, the panel transferred four misspellings of BRITANNICA, such as bitannica.com and britannca.com. John Zuccarini registered them on or about October 22, 1999, three days after Encyclopaedia Britannica announced its www.britannica.com website. The panel treated his record as evidence. According to the complaint, he held more than 1,300 domain names, many of them misspellings of famous marks or celebrity names. A US federal court had already granted a preliminary injunction against him for the same practice in Shields v. Zuccarini. The panel said that court finding did not decide the UDRP question but deserved substantial weight. For a business owner, this decision shows that a typo domain is a strong case when the registrant has a track record. Section 1.9 of the WIPO Overview 3.1 treats a common or obvious misspelling of a trademark as confusingly similar, and says a misspelling normally signals an intent to confuse users. The limit is that Encyclopaedia Britannica had a famous mark and a respondent who never answered. The panel listed both facts among its reasons for finding bad faith.
What does the WIPO Overview 3.1 say?
The WIPO Overview 3.1 summarises how WIPO panels decide each issue. These sections cover the same point of law.
- Section 1.9: Is a domain name consisting of a variation of the complainant's trademark confusingly similar to the complainant's mark? The Overview cites this decision here.
- Section 3.1.4: How does a complainant prove that a respondent has intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to its website by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant's mark? The Overview cites this decision here.
Who decided the case?
A single panelist, Jeffrey M. Samuels, decided the case on 7 June 2000.
Read the decision
The full text is published by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. We summarise it here; the decision itself is the authority.
Summarised by Gergana Dimitrova. Checked against the published decision on 23 October 2026.
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