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1. The Parties

The Complainant is Kabushiki KaishaRaibudoa, (English name: livedoor, Inc.), MAR¡¯S Minami Aoyama Building 6F, 9-19, Minami Aoyama 5-chome,Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062, JAPAN.

The Respondent is Kubota, A, Higashi-cho, OSAKA, Osaka, JAPAN.

2. The Domain Name and Registrar

The disputed Domain Name is <¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢.com>(bq¡ªgdu2jvwjui)and the Registrar is Network Solution Inc. of the United States of America.

3. Procedural History

This is an administrativeproceeding pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (¡°thePolicy¡±) adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(¡°ICANN¡±) on August 26, 1999, in accordance with the Rules for the Policy,approved by ICANN on October 24, 1999, (¡°the Rules¡±) and the Supplemental Rulesfor the Policy (¡°the Supplemental Rules¡±) of the WIPO Arbitration and MediationCenter (¡°the Center¡±).

The Complaint was received by theCenter by email on June 21, 2001 and in hard copy on June 25, 2001.  The Centeracknowledged receipt on June 22, 2001 and sought registration details from the Registrar on June 26, 2001.  On July 19, 2001 the Center received the confirmation from the Registrar that, among others, the Respondent is the current registrant. 

On July 20, 2001, theCenter satisfied itself that the Complainant had complied with all formal requirementsof the Rules, including payment of the prescribed fee, and notified the Respondent by post/courier, facsimile and email of the Complaint and of the commencement ofthis administrative proceeding.  The formal date of thecommencement of the proceeding was accordingly July 20, 2001.  The lastday specified in the notice for a response was August 9, 2001. 

The communications by any means failed to reach the Respondent.  On August 10, 2001,no response having been filed, theCenter notified the Respondent of its default.

On August 27, 2001, theCenter notified the parties of the appointment of Masato Dogauchi as the AdministrativePanel, after receiving the Statement ofAcceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence from Masato Dogauchi.  The Center notified that the Panel wasrequired, absent exceptional circumstances, to forward its decision to theCenter by September 10, 2001.

The language of the proceeding wasEnglish.

The Panel is satisfied that theComplaint was filed in accordance with the requirements of the Rules andSupplemental Rules; payment was properly made; the Panel agrees with theCenter¡¯s assessment concerning the Complaint¡¯s compliance with the formalrequirements of the Rules; the Complaintwas properly notified to the Respondent inaccordance with paragraph 2(a) of the Rules; no Response was filed within thetime specified by the Rules and the single-member Administrative Panel was properly constituted.

4. Factual Background

Since the Respondent failed to furnish itsresponse, the Panel proceeds to consider the following facts submitted by theComplainant:

The Complainant is a company incorporatedunder Japanese law and is wholly owned by ¡°livedoor Group Inc.¡± in the UnitedStates.  It has its business basein Japan for the Internet related business using Japanese language.  ¡°Kabushiki Kaisha Raibudoa(Öêʽ»áÉç¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢)¡±  is registered as theofficial company name of the Complainant with a legal affairs bureau in Tokyo,Japan.  The term ¡°¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢¡±, which is pronounced ¡°Raibudoa¡± in Japanese,is correspondent with ¡°livedoor¡± in English.  The Complainant applied for trademark registration of ¡°¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢¡± to Japanese Patent Office on November 1,1999.  Such application wasapproved on February 9, 2001 and has since been  the owner of theregistered trademark of ¡°¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢¡± under Japanese law, specifying servicesincluding, in particular, agency for advertising in communications by computerterminals and communications by computer terminals.  

The disputed domain name <¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢.com> was registered by the Respondent.  According to the information registeredat the WHOIS database of the Registrar (Document F-9 submitted by theComplainant), the record on this domain name was created on November 10,2000.   There is no evidencethat shows the activity of the Respondent using this domain name.

5. Parties¡¯ Contentions

Complainant

The Complainant asserts in essence as follows:

(1) The disputed domain name <¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢.com>is identical or confusing similar to the registered trademark of theComplainant under Japanese law;

(2) The brand ¡°¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢¡± has reached its currentlevel of recognition after multi million dollar investment in far reachingPR/Marketing campaign and universally associated with the Complainant¡¯sservice;

(3) The Respondent should be considered as having no rights or legitimate interests inrespect of the dispute domain name;

(4) The disputed domain name was registered in bad faith in order to prevent the ownerof the trademark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name.

With regard to the item (4) above, theComplainant introduces the following evidences showing the Respondent¡¯s badfaith in its registration:

- The Respondent¡¯s registered address, ¡°Higashi-cho, OSAKA, Osaka, JAPAN¡±, isfictitious and incomplete;

- The Respondent¡¯s phone and facsimile numbers, ¡°+81-00-000-0000¡± and ¡°123-123-1234¡±respectively, are fictitious and invalid;

- The Respondent¡¯s name, ¡°Kubota, A¡±, is also incomplete.

- The Respondent has acquired 19 multilingual domain names on the same date andthrough the same registrar using the same fictitious and incomplete addresses,one of which is the disputed domain name;

- The Complainant cannot find where and how the Respondent is using the disputeddomain name.

The Complainant accordingly requests a decisionthat the disputed domain name be transferred to the Complainant.

B. Respondent

There was no response filed.

6. Discussion and Findings

In accordance with Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy, for the complaint to be granted, the Complainant must prove each of thefollowing:

- The disputed domain name is identicalor confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainanthas rights; and

- The Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name;and

- The disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

These requirements will be verifiedrespectively.

Identicaland Confusing Similarity

It is clear from the record that the disputeddomain name <¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢.com> includesidentical term ¡°¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢¡± with the essential partof the Complainant¡¯s company name and with its registered trademark underJapanese law.  Absent the rebuttalfrom the Respondent, there is no reason to deny the finding that the firstrequirement is satisfied.

Legitimate Interests

According to the complaint, the Complainantcould not find where and how the Respondent is using the disputed domainname.  As the Respondent has notargued any rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domainname, it is inevitable to  concludethat the second requirement is also satisfied.

Bad Faith

As stated above, the Complainant pointed outseveral facts in order to prove that the disputed domain name was registered inbad faith.  With regard to theinformation of the identification and location of the Respondent registered inthe record of the Registrar, the Center also could not reach the Respondentusing such information. Furthermore, in consideration of the fact that such information isidentical in 19 multilingual domain names, one of which was the disputed one inthis case, registered by the Respondent on the same date and through the sameregistrar using the same identification, it is obvious that the Respondentintentionally registered such fictitious or incomplete data in order to evadepursuit from anyone who would claim its rights or interests in its registereddomain names.  As the Respondenthas not argued to the contrary, the third requirement can be admitted to besatisfied.

Accordingly, all three cumulative requirementsas provided for in Paragraph 4(a)of the Policy are determined to besatisfied.

7. Decision

In accordance with Paragraphs 4(i) ofthe Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Paneldecides that the disputed domain name <¥é¥¤¥Ö¥É¥¢.com>(bq¡ªgdu2jvwjui) registered by the Respondent  (Kubota, A.) to be transferred to theComplaint (Kabushiki Kaisha Raibudoa).