WIPO Panel Denies Hamish Ogston Domain Complaint: Personal Reputation Does Not Establish Name as Source Identifier

The Administrative Panel of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has ruled in the domain name case Hamish Ogston v. Dimos Constantinou, Case No. D2026-3429, with the decision dated 2026, 10 18; the complainant is Hamish Ogston of the United Kingdom, the respondent is Dimos Constantinou of Belize, and the disputed domain name hamishogstonfoundation.org is registered with Gandi SAS.

The respondent did not submit any response, and the Center notified the respondent of its default on 2026, 10 3; on 2026, 10 7, the Center appointed Rebecca Slater as the sole panelist in this case.

The complainant established the Hamish Ogston Foundation in 2019, 10 to carry out charitable activities, and the foundation was renamed The Vinehill Trust on 2023, 12 11. According to the complaint, the disputed domain name was originally registered by the foundation and used to promote its charitable activities, and ceased to be used after the name change; the domain name was registered on 2018, 6 27, and the complainant asserts that the respondent acquired the domain name around 2025, 11.

At the time of the complaint, the website to which the disputed domain name resolved retained content previously published by the foundation—reports on charitable activities, a link to the complainant's LinkedIn profile and his blog posts—while also containing links to multiple casino and gambling websites; the disputed domain name currently does not resolve to an active website.

The Panel noted that the Policy does not expressly confer standing on personal names that are unregistered or otherwise not protected as trademarks; a personal name must be used in commerce as a source identifier for the complainant to establish unregistered rights, and merely having a well-known name or broadly asserting commercial use without substantiation is generally insufficient. The Panel also compared D2013-1255: in that case the complainant was the chief executive officer of a large media company, with hundreds of articles about him, yet rights were still not found because he did not assert use of his name as an identifier for particular goods or services; whereas actors, authors and performers—people whose "livelihood depends on personal recognition"—meet that standard "almost by definition."

The Panel accepted that the complainant is a well-known philanthropist, but the relevant evidence concerned his personal reputation and public standing and did not show that "Hamish Ogston" was used as an identifier for goods or services under that name; there was no evidence in the record of sales, advertising or other transactions conducted under that name. The foundation's prior use was also not accepted: the available record was insufficient to show that the name had been used as an identifier, and the complainant did not explain why rights should belong to him personally rather than to the foundation.

The complainant further argued that the domain name's composition and the respondent's targeted use of it could support its unregistered rights. The panel disagreed: neither, in itself, was sufficient to fill the gap of “the absence of concrete evidence that the name was used as a source identifier.” Accordingly, the panel found that the first element under the Policy was not established, and therefore it was unnecessary to consider the second and third elements, and the complaint was denied.

Source: WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center case D2026-3429, sole panelist Rebecca Slater, 2026 year 10 month 18 day.

Note: The content of this article is compiled from public information and is only general intellectual property popularization and practical observation, for information reference only; it does not constitute legal advice or other professional advice for any specific case, and the relevant determinations and conclusions should be subject to the official published documents and the actual circumstances of the individual case.