The top cryptocurrency exchange Binance lost a domain name dispute with one Australian florist over the website binance.com.au. Because of this, the website Binance Australia is now a flower delivery service used by an Australian florist.
Data shows that on June 17, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) denied a complaint which was filed by the exchange in April, finding out that Binance had “not discharged its onus of demonstrating the Respondent does not have rights or a legitimate interest in the disputed domain name.”
WIPO also noted that “no good purpose would be served by addressing” Binance’s request at the time, and was featured in the cryptonews for ruling out in favor of the florist’s claim to the domain name. This is how Binance Australia is now delivering flowers and the complaint by the exchange has been resolved.
Even though Binance issued a complaint saying that they trademarked the name first (in November 2018) and that the florist registered the domain nearly one year later (October 2019), there is nothing much that can be done now. Binance Australia is now attempting to highlight all facts that go in their favor.
We could also see that the exchange highlighted that their director, Mr. Nawodycz, also operates a digital marketing firm and works as a “blockchain exchange researcher” for the company and their World Bookings – highlighting that Nawodycz registered the name only to monetize the domain.
On the other hand, WIPO noted that the expressions like ‘binancé flowers’ do not translate from French to mean ‘paired flowers’ in English, as Nawodycz claimed. Google Translate, however, was found to support Nawodycz and his assertion.
WIPO’s ruling in the Binance news now states that multiple listings on Binance.com.au use images of flowers that are identical to the ones used by various eBay and Etsy sellers. The MetaMask browser extension also flags the website as a phishing attempt.
Anyways, it will be certainly interesting to see whether Binance Australia will transform to a flower shop (with the domain held by the Australian florist) or the exchange will find a way to bring back their domain name, even if it means paying to the person that was first to purchase it.
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