WIPO D2000-1698 · decided 25 January 2001
Arthur Guinness Son & Co. (Dublin) Limited v. Dejan Macesic
The parties
- Complainant
- Arthur Guinness Son & Co. (Dublin) Limited
- Respondent
- Dejan Macesic
What did the panel find on each element?
| Policy paragraph | Finding |
|---|---|
| 4(a)(i) Identical or confusingly similar | The panel found guiness.com essentially identical and confusingly similar to the GUINNESS trademark, because the only differences were one missing letter N and the .com suffix. |
| 4(a)(ii) No rights or legitimate interests | The panel found no legitimate interest. Disclaimers on the site could not help, because the misspelled domain name had already diverted visitors before they read them, and banner revenue made the use commercial. |
| 4(a)(iii) Registered and used in bad faith | The panel found bad faith under paragraph 4(b)(iv): the respondent must have known the famous GUINNESS mark and used the misspelling to draw traffic to a site carrying advertising banners. |
Why does Guiness matter for a complaint today?
In Arthur Guinness Son & Co. (Dublin) Limited v. Dejan Macesic, WIPO Case No. D2000-1698, decided on 25 January 2001, the panel transferred guiness.com to the brewer. The domain name dropped one N from GUINNESS. The panel held that the content of the site did not matter at the first element, because users arrive already confused by the domain name. The same reasoning defeated the respondent's disclaimers. By the time a visitor reads a disclaimer, the misspelled domain name has already diverted that visitor away from Guinness. The panel also found the use commercial, because the discussion site carried advertising banners, even though the respondent said the revenue only covered hosting costs. The WIPO Overview 3.1 follows this line. Section 1.9 treats typosquatting as confusingly similar, and section 3.7 says a disclaimer cannot cure bad faith where the overall circumstances point to it. If someone has registered a typo of your trademark, a disclaimer on their site is not a defence. The limit, also in section 3.7, is that a clear disclaimer can still support a respondent who otherwise has a legitimate interest, such as a reseller of your goods.
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 3.7: How does a disclaimer on the webpage to which a disputed domain name resolves impact a panel's assessment of bad faith? 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, Alan L. Limbury, decided the case on 25 January 2001.
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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