Abinbev.com is a dating site

The Belgian-Brazilian ABInbev may be one of the leading brewers in the world, but the domain name abinbev.com does not belong to them. That site is registered by a dating site. Shortly after the announcement of the acquisition of Anheuser-Busch by Inbev, a South Korean indeed registered abinbev.com for his dating service.

Currently, the brewer must settle for ab-inbev.com (with a hyphen). In the meantime, the brewer, together with a battalion of lawyers, has been trying to get hold of ABInbev.com. To do so, they called the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation), that is in charge of solving disputes concerning domain names with extensions such as .com and .net. This way, the transfer of abinbev.com to the brewer has been decided.

But the South Korean refused to comply with the decision. He then cleverly exploited a loophole in the WIPO rules of procedure and brought suit in his own country. Currently, the brewer is not out of the woods yet. And the verdict of the South Korean judge must still be delivered. The moral of this story is very clear: a (faster) registration is better than a lawsuit.