Complainant, National Trust for Historic Preservation, owns rights in the mark HISTORIC HOTELS OF AMERICA. Respondent offers travel services at www.historichotels.com.
National Trust for Historic Preservation v. Barry Preston, Case No. D2005-0424
A three-member Panel denies relief, stating:
It is clear that the Respondent’s website is in the nature of a general online travel site, and that the reservation services offered there are by no means restricted to establishments identified or recognized as historic hotels. Nevertheless, the Respondent claims to have adopted the domain name without awareness of the Complainant or its HISTORIC HOTELS OF AMERICA mark, the Respondent commenced operation of his website before notice of this dispute, and the Respondent’s use of the domain name is descriptive in the sense that it communicates some aspect of the services offered on the Respondent’s travel website. As noted above, there are a number of other domain names incorporating “historic hotels” in its common descriptive sense, and the Panel concludes from the record as a whole that the Respondent is using the disputed domain name in a descriptive rather than a trademark sense, without intent to trade on the goodwill associated with the Complainant’s mark, or to attract Internet users to his website for commercial gain by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s mark.
