Electronic Arts lost its bid to reclaim the domain name SSX.com, as the National Arbitration Forum panel ruled that domain owner Abstract Holdings International LTD did not use the site in ”bad faith”, although the panel does admit the holdings company is on ”thin ice”.
According to the panel; ”The EA allegations of bad faith in part are based upon the lack of due diligence conducted by retailers of domain names like Respondent. EA would seem to require that entities like Respondent conduct an international search for relatively obscure trademarks in order to determine whether a name is a registered mark. The Panel is not willing to go so far.”
Abstract Holdings International LTD purchased SSX.com in October 2011 as part of a $200K USD portfolio of titles. The company only briefly used the site to advertise videogames. The panel queried, “Given the ease of searches using the common tools of the Internet, how much is it to ask of a retailer like Respondent to do a little extra work?”
The reboot to the classic snowboarding title SSX will be hitting Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in February.
