J K Rowling, author of the world famous Harry Potter books, films and merchandising, has conjured up domain name success in a UDRP dispute.

In a World Intellectual Property Organization decision released today (9th December, 2004) , J K Rowling has won an order for transfer of the domain names <kjkrowling.com> and <www-jkrowling.com> registered by an individual from Uruguay. According to the author's complaint to WIPO, visitors to the registrar parking pages associated with the two domains were 'bombarded with unsolicited pop-up advertisements for a variety of goods and services totally unrelated to the registrar's business.'

Naturally, the complaint accused the domain name registrant of 'typosquatting', pointing out in particular that the additional 'k' to the left of the first domain was immediately adjacent to the 'j' on a standard keyboard and that www-jkrowling.com was phonetically very close to J K Rowling's official web site address.

The registrant of the domain names did not respond to the complaint. This was perhaps unsurprising, given that J K Rowling was able to list no less than five other cases in which the registrant had had the misfortune to register such domains as <expediua.com>, <arifrance.com> and <bankofamericq.com>, again uncomfortably close to and recognisable as famous brand names.

Links:

Joanne Rowling v. Alvaro Collazo

Orginal article:
http://www.demys.net/news/2004/12/09_harry.htm