Zur (mittelbaren) Haftung einer Domain-Parking-Plattform. Zugleich eine Besprechung von BGH, Urt. v. 18. 11. 2010 – I ZR 155/09 (Sedo)

In a decision dated November 18,2010, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled, that operators of 'parking-platforms' can neither be held directly nor secondarily liable for trademark violations of their customers. This decision is largely convincing as far as it concerns the direct liability. However, if the provider is using the second-level domain to automatically generate an advertising-keyword which is (almost) identical to a third party's trademark, this constitutes a separate act of 'trademark use' and the provider should be held liable for this trademark violation.Contrary to the opinion of the Federal Court, an application of Article 15 para 2 Directive 2000/31/EC (prohibition of general monitoring obligations) in favour of the parking provider has to be declined. In view of the ECJ-decision 'Google France', the parking provider's actions do not fall within the personal scope of application of Article 15 para 2 Directive 2000/31/EC because the parking provider does not play a neutral but rather an active role. Therefore, Article 15 para 2 Directive 2000/31/EC does not rule out proactive monitoring obligations in this case.For the purpose of determining just and reasonable monitoring obligations, the domain-parking business model has to be split up into a generic and a non-generic field. With regard to non-generic terms an economically beneficial and at the same time lawful way of using the platform is hardly conceivable. This especially applies when the respective non-generic domain is based on an identical or almost identical keyword. Compared to online auctions, the non-generic part of the business model turns out to be highly prone to trade mark infringements by the users and is thus not to be considered neutral. This assumption is underpinned by a recent study by Moore/Edelman regarding so-called 'Typosquatting'. The authors estimated that at least 938,000 Typosquatting domains exist which target the top 3,264 .com-websites. Furthermore, they found that 80 % of these websites are supported by pay-per-click ads, often advertising the correctly spelled domain and its competitors. Given these facts, at least in the field of non-generic domains the parking provider should be required to conduct a proactive audit independent of any factual knowledge. The contrary opinion of the Federal Court of Justice is not convincing.A viable measure of proactive auditing would be the screening of all non-generic domains based on identical or nearly identical keywords. In this case, an infringing use is generally obvious since a lawful and economically beneficial way of use hardly exists for these types of domains. Irrespective of the keyword, the screening of all terms that contain a »www«-prefix or an attached top level domain is conceivable. Furthermore, terms should be screened when their genesis cannot be detected with the help of an 'Unknown-Word-Software'. Contrary to the opinion of the Court, the proposed measures do not impose an unreasonable burden on the providers because they can be conducted automatically using digital dictionaries and respective software. Mit der Entscheidung »Sedo« liegt nun ein weiteres Urteil des I. Zivilsenats des BGH vor, das sich im Kern mit der Frage der Prüfungspflichten von Diensteanbietern im Internet befasst. Grundlage des Rechtsstreits ist das Geschäftsmodell des sogenannten Domain-Parkings. Im konkreten Fall hatte die Inhaberin der Marke »Staedtler« den Betreiber der Domain-Parking-Plattform »Sedo« abgemahnt, weil ein Kunde die Domain »staedtler.eu« dort geparkt hatte und unter dieser Domain Werbeanzeigen direkter Konkurrenten angezeigt wurden. Die Markeninhaberin verlangte vom Betreiber Ersatz der außergerichtlichen Abmahnkosten. Der BGH musste also klären, ob die Markeninhaberin bereits im Vorfeld einer ersten Inkenntnissetzung einen Unterlassungsanspruch gegen den Betreiber hat. Dies lehnte der Senat ab. Der folgende Beitrag widmet sich daher der Frage, ob die En