Don’t Go Breaking My Arts: Panel Upholds Registrant’s Domain Name Despite Complainant’s Identical Official Mark

On September 9, 2025, the decision in City of Port Moody v Aldo Difelice, 25374-CDRP, was released under the Canadian Internet Registration Authority Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (CDRP), where the CDRP panel (Panel) denied the City of Port Moody’s (the Complainant’s) request to transfer the domain name cityofthearts.ca  (the Domain Name) due to it being registered in bad faith. Among other things, the Complainant relied on its rights in the official mark CITY OF THE ARTS as registered under Canada’s Trademarks Act.

The Complainant previously owned the Domain Name and inadvertently allowed its registration to expire. The Registrant, Mr. Aldo Di Felice, later registered the Domain Name on March 26, 2015, for use in connection with TLN Media Group’s (TMG) arts and cultural activities in Toronto. Due to a technical oversight, the Domain Name was not linked to any TMG-associated sites and instead displayed “parking pages” with apparent pay-per-click advertisements. After being notified of the state of the Domain Name, the Registrant corrected the oversight to redirect traffic to a site supporting TMG’s activities.

In initiating the CDRP proceedings, the Complainant argued that it has adopted and used its official mark CITY OF THE ARTS since 2004 and:

1. the Domain Name was confusingly similar to the official mark;
2. the Domain Name was registered in bad faith; and
3. the Registrant had no legitimate interest in the Domain Name.

The Panel found that the Domain Name was identical and confusingly similar to the Complainant’s official mark. However, the Panel held that there was no evidence that the Registrant registered the Domain Name in bad faith or for the purpose of disrupting the business of the Complainant. This includes there being no evidence that the advertisements appearing in connection with the Domain Name targeted the Complainant or the Domain Name registrar was acting on the Registrant’s instructions in placing these advertisements. Furthermore, the Panel highlighted that the official mark CITY OF THE ARTS is nondescript and “…the Complainant has put forward little to no evidence that the average Canadian would think of Port Moody, B.C. when hearing that phrase. The domain name could equally be used by others without infringing the Complainant’s rights.” The finding of no bad faith was determinative for the dispute.

The Registrant was represented by M. Imtiaz Karamat of Deeth Williams Wall LLP.

Summary By: Amy Ariganello