Hotel Chain Fails In Effort To Use Trademark To Block Workers’ Union

A North American hotel chain recently lost a case at the World Intellectual Property Organization against a critical workers’ union website it tried to silence through a trademark claim. A panellist under the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center ruled on 2 December that the union had a right to keep a website critical of the hotel chain, in part as a safeguard of freedom of speech. Coast Hotels & Resorts filed a complaint against workers’ union Unite Here for alleged infringement of trademark over the union’s websites www.CoastHotels-BadforBC.info, and www.CoastHotels-BadforBC.org. Unite Here represents workers throughout the United States and Canada in sectors such as the hospitality, food service, manufacturing and airport industries. The union website claims to aim to raise standards in the different industries it covers and to seek more respect in the work environment, and presents testimonies of workers from Coast Hotels.

According to the union, Coast Hotels & Resorts asked that WIPO transfer the domain names to them, alleging bad faith and attempts to disrupt business. The case was assigned to an arbitration panel of one person, who rejected the claim of Coast hotels. But the decision stopped short of approving the union’s counterclaim of bad faith and harassment by the hotel.

WIPO panel decision available here.