SpaceX loses Starlink Mexican domain battle
SpaceX loses a cybersquatting challenge against StarGroup, a 60-year-old Mexican telecommunications and entertainment services company in Mexico that registered the domain name starlinkmx.com. StarGroup’s brands include Star TV, Star Go, Star Line and Star Group.
The company applied for trademarks in Mexico for Starlink for communications starting in 2015. In November 2017, SpaceX legal representatives contacted StarGroup, initially not naming its client, to see if StarGroup would sell its Star Line and Starlink marks.
In finding for StarGroup, the WIPO panel noted that the company’s brand name starts with star, and it has a history of naming products that start with star. The panel also pointed out that StarGroup applied for trademarks in 2015, which predates SpaceX’s intentions to use the mark. The panel found that SpaceX did not show that StarGroup lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain and did not show that StarGroup registered the domain in bad faith.