Ripping of Paypal TM is Sanctioned by Paypal

[Rubber Duck]

I have rung the US today to complain to Paypal.com about being conned by Paypay.com.

When asked for payment details for another business I accidentally typoed PAYPAL to PAYPAY but my client managed to make payment this way, which was a total surprise as neither he nor I had previously heard of PayPay.com.

I was incesensed not least because their interface will only pay Euros into a UK bank account, even when the balance is already in Sterling.

Having rung Paypal transatlantic, the message I got is that PayPay is not not confusing similar to PayPal. Well, if it is not I don't know what the F*ck would be. Why bother with intellectual property rights at all if that is the attitude.

After all the nonsense we have had about phishing scams relating to Paypal this is an absolute joke and make a total mockery of WIPO on the basis of "Confusingly Similar".

My advise is get out there and register Paypa1.com Palpal.com, Pay-pal.com, Paypal.us and just about anyother combination you can think of, because after the conversation that I had this morning, these can only possible be described as Generic!

 

[Terminator]

The page layout at paypay.com is completely different than that of paypal.com, if a Paypal user went to paypay.com, they would know it was not Paypal.

I see your point for the domain being confusingly similar, because of Paypals name recognition and popularity, I think what troubles me the most is the typo issue, I think this is the biggest weakness of arguing the domain is confusingly similar by the mistyping of one letter.

 

[Rubber Duck]

The page layout at paypay.com is completely different than that of paypal.com, if a Paypal user went to paypay.com, they would know it was not Paypal.

I see your point for the domain being confusingly similar, because of Paypals name recognition and popularity, I think what troubles me the most is the typo issue, I think this is the biggest weakness of arguing the domain is confusingly similar by the mistyping of one letter.

It is now an established principle at UDRP that Typos are confusingly similar. It is difficult to imagine a more frequent Typo of Paypal than than PayPay, so I cannot see how given some objectiveness analysis this could be defended at UDRP, especially as they are using it to run and identical business model.

Paypal.com was registered 1999

Paypay was not created until 2002-04-22

Paypal was founded in 1998 and acquired by Ebay late 2002.

It is difficult to see how Paypay cannot be seen to be an infringement of Ebay's TMs!!!

If Ebay are not prepared to defend this properly, then frankly they deserve to have their TMs abused!

 

[Manolete]

Pay is a generic word, isn't it?

 

[Rubber Duck]

Pay is a generic word, isn't it?

Yes, it is and so is Pal, but Paypal is not a Generic, and so neither can PayPay be either in my estimation, unless there is some loop hole in the law here.

If so Cocacoca.com or colacola.com should be OK. What do you think?

 

[Terminator]

I agree on the typo issue Duck, the domain paypay was obviously created with the intent to steal traffic away from Paypal, I think any domain where 1 letter is replaced with another, you can most make the case of it being confusingly similar, gaypal.com for example, if that domain was used for credit card or bank processing.

 

[Creature]

There is probably a strong argument for this domain being registered in good faith. The 'y' is 4 keys from the 'L' and pay is a generic word that you can't trademark for payments. Also there are many existing double dictionary domains. eg sofasofa.com. He could have bought paypay.com simply because pay.com was not available. 'Pay' obviously has a totally different meaning to 'Pal'.

 

[Raider]

Your leaving out a persons mind set, I'm sure we all find ourselves repeating words when we type in domains, look at the guy who registered ebaybay.com, it comes as not surprise that the site is blocked. The fact that paypay processes credit cards same as paypal, and have a very similar domain, leads me to believe they wanted to emulate Paypal and capture whatever typo traffic they can, which was the case for Rubber ducks client.

 

[Theo]

Since it's all the rage to register domains with double words, I highly recommend the flash tutorial demos of http://demodemo.com not to be confused with demo.com (and obviously, not mine).