Post Syndicated from original https://lwn.net/Articles/887931/

Red Hat recently filed a request to have the domain name WeMakeFedora.org
transferred from its current owner, Daniel Pocock, alleging trademark
violations, bad faith, and more. The judgment
that came back will not have been to the company’s liking:

The Panel finds that Respondent is operating a genuine,
noncommercial website from a domain name that contains an appendage
(“we make”) that, as noted in the Response, is clearly an
identifier of contributors to Complainant’s website. In registering
the domain name using an appendage that identifies Complainant’s
contributors, Respondent is not attempting to impersonate
Complainant nor misleadingly to divert Internet users. Rather,
Respondent is using the FEDORA mark in the domain name to identify
Complainant for the purpose of operating a website that contains
some criticism of Complainant. Such use is generally described as
“fair use” of a trademark.

The judgment concludes with a statement that this action was an abuse of
the process.