In its April 14, 2003 decision in Puerto Rico Tourism Company v. Virtual Countries, Inc., the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre refused to transfer puertorico.com on the basis that Puerto Rico was not a trade-mark of the government owned complainant.
Under section 4(a) of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) governing disputes over .com domain names, a complainant must establish the following three criteria for the transfer of a domain name:
- that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trade-mark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;
- that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
- that the domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith.