WIPO D2025-0108 · decided 14 February 2025
Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH v. Domain Admin
The parties
- Complainant
- Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH
- Respondent
- Domain Admin
What did the panel find on each element?
| Policy paragraph | Finding |
|---|---|
| 4(a)(i) Identical or confusingly similar | The panel found canesmeno.com identical to the CANESMENO trademark, held under European Union Trademark Registrations No. 019014127 and No. 019031008, with the ".com" ending disregarded. |
| 4(a)(ii) No rights or legitimate interests | The panel found Domain Admin had no rights or legitimate interests, because it filed no evidence and the domain name carries a risk of implied affiliation with Bayer. |
| 4(a)(iii) Registered and used in bad faith | The panel found bad faith because canesmeno.com was registered on April 16, 2024, the day Bayer filed its first CANESMENO application, and was then offered for sale. |
Why does Canesmeno matter for a complaint today?
The panel in Bayer Intellectual Property GmbH v. Domain Admin, D2025-0108, ordered the transfer of canesmeno.com on February 14, 2025. Bayer applied for European Union Trademark No. 019014127 for CANESMENO on April 16, 2024. The domain name was registered that same day. It resolved to a GoDaddy page offering it for sale at USD 2,850. The trademark was registered on July 27, 2024, more than three months after the domain name. The panel still found bad faith. It relied on the same-day timing and the sale offer, and the Respondent did not reply. This matters if you are launching a new brand. A domain name taken after your trademark application, but before registration, can still be recovered under the UDRP. Section 3.8.2 of the WIPO Overview 3.1 lists registration "following the complainant's filing of a trademark application" as one scenario where panels have found bad faith before the trademark is registered. The limit is in the same section. It applies only "in certain limited circumstances", where the facts show the registrant meant to capitalise unfairly on your new trademark. The simplest protection is to register the matching domain name before you file.
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 3.8.2: Can bad faith be found where a domain name was registered before the complainant acquired trademark rights?
- Section 3.1.1: How does a complainant prove that a respondent has registered or acquired a domain name primarily to sell the domain name to the complainant (or its competitor) for valuable consideration in excess of the respondent's costs related to the domain name?
Who decided the case?
A single panelist, Edoardo Fano, decided the case on 14 February 2025.
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, who worked at the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center from 2018 to 2021 and sits as a domain name panelist at the Czech Arbitration Court. Checked against the published decision on 23 October 2026. Full background.
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