"The domain is already taken"

Domaingrabbing or Domain Warehousing describes the securing of TLDs (Top Level Domains) for later (abusive) trading.

Pure Domaingrabbing is illegal. The domain grabbers are mostly concerned with a mere prevention competition. In essence, this ensures (for example, as a competitor) an important domain of the competitor (eg, its name) within a TLD. Unlike domain dealers, however, this domain should not (can not) be sold to its competitors. So you just block parts of the internet to restrict the competitor's business.

1. Naming rights or corporate designation protection

First of all, there could be a right to surrender against the current owner of the TLD from the so-called right to name acc. § 12 BGB or company identification protection according to § 5 Paragraph 2 Trademarks granted. For this purpose, the specific name, which also appears in the domain, must be sufficiently distinctive in terms of name and must be protected. Merely descriptive information is not sufficient and such a claim would be omitted from the outset. However, if there is a protectable, individualizing designation, an unauthorized presumption of the name within the meaning of Section 12 of the German Civil Code (BGB) requires that a third party uses the name without authorization and thus causes confusion in the assignment. A domain registration is to be regarded as unauthorized if the domain owner does not have his own right to the corresponding name. It is therefore crucial that the domain has a distinctive name that the general public ascribes to the company (e.g. Adidas).

However, the decisions of the courts here are very scattered and small differences omit the claim, for example, the OLG Hamburg has denied the claim, since in the present case, the name of the plaintiff time originated only after the registration of the domain name (OLG Hamburg, judgment of 09.04.2015, Az: 3 U 59 / 15).

2.competition rights

Furthermore, one could rely on competition law removal claims according to §§ 8 Abs. 1,4 Nr. 10 UWG appointed. The registration of the domain name could limit the scope for development under competition law. Because the traffic can expect the company that actually bears the name under the domain name. However, these claims are still regularly rejected because the priority principle applies to the domain allocation and any impairment as a result must be accepted. The other party can usually not be accused of illegal behavior. Even if the latter has no serious interest in publishing their own content under the domain name, the BGH denies any legal abuse.

Basically, therefore, is to be noted in a judicial proceeding, that although claims may exist, but these must be examined very carefully, because little things make a difference in the rating, especially if in the domain is a distinctive name and if the name right before registration of the domain duration. A judicial procedure is nevertheless very risky, since there is no uniform jurisprudence.

Yes absolutely!

For example, a dispute application should be submitted via the Denic (German Network Information Center). You have to prove to DENIC that you have a claim on the domain, that you are taking legal action against the domain owner and that you have previously made a request to DENIC about the owner of the domain. Then the domain is provided with an entry so that it can no longer be transferred to a third party and in case of winning the case, it then falls automatically to the right holder.