A French Banking institution recently suffered a setback in a UDRP decision[1] concerning <vdft.com>, pitting it against a domainer based in India.
The complainant argued that it had unregistered trademark rights to ‘Val de France Transactions’ and ‘VDFT’, citing several hundred thousand customers and a figure in excess of €1.5 million in 2022.
As UDRP complaints are open to individuals and entities worldwide, in order to place rights holders on an equal footing, unregistered trademark rights are accepted even if the country of origin of the person invoking them does not recognise such rights.
Thus, a French company can certainly assert unregistered trademark rights. It should be noted that the panelists requirements with regard to the first condition of the UDRP are much higher. Section 1.3 of the WIPO Overview 3.0[2] summarises the elements expected from the complainant, who must produce evidence of the ‘acquired distinctiveness’ of the unregistered trademark.
Let us return to the case at hand: although the complainant owned the domain name <vdft.fr>, it was not in use, and the panelist further noted that although VDFT was the acronym for ‘Val de France Transactions,’ it was not used as a trademark in the evidence provided by the complainant. In order to meet the first condition of the UDRP, the complainant should have demonstrated sustained use of the VDFT sign on commercial media and websites, which was not the case.
Indirect protection of VDFT as an acronym for ‘Val De France Transactions’ is not accepted; VDFT had to meet the criteria for an unregistered trademark as such.
While it is possible to invoke an unregistered trademark under the UDRP, particular effort must be made to produce evidence supporting the existence of unregistered trademark rights as envisaged in the UDRP case law mentioned above.
In this case, additionally the domain name had been registered prior to the launch of the Val De France Transaction service, which led the Panelist to classify the complaint as ‘Reverse Domain Name Hijacking’.
The UDRP procedure is a highly technical mechanism, based on strict criteria and an increasingly well-structured body of case law. Its effective use requires specific expertise, both in trademark law and in domain name law. A poorly calibrated complaint may not only fail, but also weaken the rights holder’s position. IP Twins’ teams, composed of specialized legal practitioners, assist companies in the strategic assessment of disputes and in the conduct of UDRP and similar proceedings.
[1] La Banque Populaire Val de France v. Kaparthi Jonnalagadda, WIPO Case No. D2025-4638, December 26, 2025 (wipo.int).
[2] “What does a complainant need to show to successfully assert unregistered or common law trademark rights?”, WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0 (wipo.int).