Canadian Tire sells everything from hubcaps to Sony PlayStations and took legal action against Mick McFadden of Ontario, the owner of the now unused crappytire.com domain name. The retailer was asserting its exclusive right to be known by Canadians as “Crappy Tire.”
To win its case before WIPO, Canadian Tire had to convince the panellist that crappytire.com is identical or confusingly similar to its trade marks – i.e. that when Canadians think of Crappy Tire, they think only of Canadian Tire. Its submission to WIPO stated:
“Canadian Tire is also colloquially referred to or known as Crappy Tire… a slang expression derived from the Canadian Tire trade marks… frequently used by younger Canadian Tire customers. In the vast majority of cases, the usage does not have a negative connotation but is an impertinent reference to a mass merchandiser.”
Mr McFadden argued that Canadian Tire had no rights to the name and that there could be little confusion between his domain name and the retailer. “Since when is the word ‘Canadian’ interchangeable with or similar to ‘crappy’?” he asked the panellist.
The panellist agreed, ruling that Canadian Tire had failed to establish any special rights to the name, according to a WIPO statement. The text of the decision has not yet been made available.
There is an article in UP Magazine by OUT-LAW.COM’s John Salmon which looks at the CrappyTire case and other so-called cyber-griping practices.