Decision for dispute CAC-UDRP-108159

The Panel is not aware of any other legal proceedings which are pending or decided and which relate to the disputed domain name.

The Complainant is the owner of a number of marks consisting of or including WANX or WAN including:

• Hong Kong TM No. 306741441 – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on November 29, 2024;
• United Kingdom TM No. UK00004131080 – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on February 28, 2025;
• United Kingdom TM No. UK00004164944 – WAN – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on July 25, 2025;
• United Kingdom TM No. UK00004050859 – TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on August 2, 2024;
• United Kingdom TM No. UK00004050861 – TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on August 2, 2024;
• EU TM No. 019113519 – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on August 2, 2025;
• Singapore TM No. 40202428255V – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on December 2, 2024;
• Singapore TM No. 40202407910Q - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on December 5, 2024;
• Philippines TM No. PH4202400532849 – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on January 18, 2025;
• Philippines TM No. PH4202400513567 – TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on September 30, 2024;
• Indonesia TM No. DID2024128996 – WANX – Nice Cl. 9, 42, registered on June 26, 2025;
• China TM No. 9162633 - WAN CONNECTION – Nice Cl. 35, registered on June 21, 2011;
• China TM No. 75902697 - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 9, registered on May 21, 2025;
• China TM No. 75902724 - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 38, registered on June 21, 2024;
• China TM No. 75902740 - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 41, registered on May 21, 2025;
• China TM No. 75914133 - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 42, registered on June 21, 2024;
• China TM No. 75917731 - TONGYI WANX – Nice Cl. 35, registered on June 21, 2024;
• China TM No. 78598066 - TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 9, registered on December 14, 2024;
• China TM No. 78598073 - TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 38, registered on December 14, 2024;
• China TM No. 78598077 - TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 41, registered on December 14, 2024;
• China No. 78610795 - TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 42, registered on December 14, 2024; and
• USA No. 8017442 - TONGYI WANXIANG – Nice Cl. 42, 9, registered on November 11, 2025.

The Complainant registered the domain name wanxai.com on November 4, 2023, followed by wan.art and wan.video on February 24, 2025. All three domain names resolve to the Complainant’s official website and platform https://wan.video/. Accordingly, in the context of AI-based video generation, the name WAN has become commonly associated with the Complainant’s product and brand.

The Complainant has made extensive use of the “WANX” denomination across all major online environments, including but not limited to the official website https://wan.video/, as well as verified accounts on leading social media and developer platforms such as GitHub, Hugging Face, X, YouTube, Telegram.

The Complainant is a company belonging to the Alibaba Group, a leading Chinese multinational conglomerate founded on June 28, 1999, in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. The Group operates globally across a wide range of sectors including e-commerce, retail, Internet, and technology. It offers consumer-to-consumer (C2C), business-to-consumer (B2C), and business-to-business (B2B) sales services through both Chinese and international marketplaces. In addition, the Group provides services in digital media and entertainment, logistics, and cloud computing. The Complainant is part of this global group, which also includes entities such as Alibaba (China) Co., Ltd. and Alibaba.com Corporation.

Alibaba is one of the world’s largest and most influential companies in the fields of retail and e-commerce and is active in over 190 countries. In addition to its leadership in online commerce, the company was ranked in 2020 as the fifth-largest artificial intelligence enterprise globally. Through its fintech subsidiary, Ant Group, Alibaba also operates as the world's second-largest financial services provider after Visa. Furthermore, it is recognized as one of the most prominent venture capital and investment firms worldwide.

Alibaba operates the world’s largest online marketplace across all major segments: B2B (Alibaba.com), C2C (Taobao), and B2C (Tmall). The Group has also significantly expanded into the media, entertainment and artificial intelligence sectors, with revenues in these areas growing at a triple-digit rate year over year. Notably, during the 2018 edition of China’s Singles’ Day – the world’s largest online and offline shopping event – Alibaba set a global sales record.

In the field of generative media, Alibaba has launched WAN, an open-source video generation framework capable of producing high-quality, multilingual video content from text prompts. WAN exemplifies Alibaba’s commitment to advancing multimodal AI and democratizing access to next-generation content creation tools.

One of the latest iterations, WANX 2.1, builds upon the Tongyi Wanxiang (通义万象) model introduced in 2023, offering enhanced capabilities in video generation. The Complainant’s Tongyi Wanxiang AI model, Tongyi Wanxiang, served as the foundation for the brand’s evolution – from the “Tongyi Wanxiang” to “Tongyi WANX”, then to the abbreviated “WANX”, and ultimately rebranded as “WAN” in February 2025.

The disputed domain name was registered by the Respondent on February 24, 2025 without the Complainant’s authorization. It currently resolves to the website https://www.wanx.run/zh-CN, which offers competing video generation AI services to those of the Complainant offering a version of the Complainant's software without authorisation.

Complaint

A. The Disputed Domain Name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights.

The Complainant has rights in respect of the “WAN”, “WANX” and “TONGYI WANXIANG” trademarks.

The entirety of the Complainants’ registered trade mark WANX is incorporated into the disputed domain name.

Panels have consistently held that top-level domains (“TLDs”), such as “.run”, are typically disregarded when assessing identity or confusing similarity under the first element of the Policy.Therefore, the analysis focuses on the second-level portion of the disputed Domain Name, which incorporates the Complainant’s trademark in a manner that creates a likelihood of confusion.

The disputed domain name is identical to the prior registered trademark WANX in which the Complainant holds rights, in accordance with Paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy.

B. The Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name.

The burden of proof lies on the Complainant. However, satisfying the burden of proving a lack of Respondent’s rights or legitimate interests in respect of the Disputed Domain Name is quite onerous, since proving a negative circumstance is always more difficult than establishing a positive one and often requires information that lies primarily within the knowledge or control of the Respondent. Accordingly, it is sufficient that the Complainant shows prima facie evidence in order to shift the burden of proof to the Respondent.

The mere registration of a domain name does not, in itself, confer rights or legitimate interests upon the registrant.

The Respondent is neither a licensee nor an authorized distributor of the Complainant and has not been granted any permission to use the Complainant’s trademarks – nor any variation, misspelling, or derivative thereof – in the disputed domain name or in any other manner.

The Complainant is not aware of any evidence indicating that the Respondent is commonly known by the disputed domain name, or by any name corresponding to it, whether as an individual, business, or other organization. Furthermore, the publicly available Whois records do not disclose any identifying information. In accordance with the Policy, this absence of evidence supports the conclusion that the Respondent has not acquired rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

Moreover, although the Complainant has made its WAN 2.1 AI video generation model available as a free and open-source tool, it has not licensed, authorized, or otherwise permitted the Respondent to register domain names incorporating the Complainant’s trademarks.

The Respondent is not making a bona fide offering of goods or services, nor is it engaged in any legitimate non-commercial or fair use of the disputed domain name. On the contrary, the Respondent is using the disputed domain name to promote and offer the Complainant’s WAN 2.1 AI video generation service through tiered pricing plans, without any authorization. This conduct demonstrates a clear intent to exploit the reputation and goodwill associated with the Complainant’s trademarks.

Moreover, the Respondent’s website displays the Complainant’s trademarks, thereby imitating the Complainant and misleading internet users into believing that the website is affiliated with or endorsed by the Complainant. Such use is not legitimate and further confirms that the Respondent is attempting to divert users by capitalizing on the Complainant’s brand identity.

In the present case, the Respondent has failed to accurately and prominently disclose its lack of affiliation with the Complainant. Notably, there is no disclaimer on the website corresponding to the disputed domain name indicating that the Respondent is unaffiliated with the Complainant, which further contributes to user confusion. This conduct not only misleads users, but also effectively prevents the Complainant from registering a corresponding domain name.

Furthermore, the Respondent registered the disputed domain name on February 24, 2025, – a date that postdates the Complainant’s trademark registrations for “WAN”, “WANX”, “TONGYI WANX” and “TONGYI WANXIANG”. This timing further supports the conclusion that the Respondent acted with knowledge of the Complainant’s rights and without any legitimate interest.

Use of a domain name for impersonation/passing off can never confer rights or legitimate interests on a respondent.  

Consequently, the Complaint respectfully submits that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in respect of the disputed domain name in accordance with Paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy.

 C. The Disputed Domain Name was registered and is being used in bad faith.

As to the assessment of the Respondent’s bad faith at the time of registration, in light of the registration and use of the Complainant’s trademarks worldwide, including in United States of America, where the Respondent appears to be located, the Respondent could not have possibly ignored the existence of the Complainant’s trademarks when the disputed Domain Name was registered, on February 25, 2024, after the Complainant adopted the “WAN”, “WANX”, “TONGYI WANX” and “TONGYI WANXIANG” trademarks for the first time. In addition, the disputed domain name resolves to a website where the Complainant’s trademarks are unduly and prominently displayed, demonstrating that the Respondent was clearly aware of the Complainant’s trademarks.

A Google search for the term “WANX”, conducted using a U.S. – based VPN (the country where the Respondent is located), immediately returns results referring to the Complainant’s products and brand. This demonstrates the widespread recognition of the Complainant’s mark in the United States and strongly indicates that the Respondent could not have been unaware of the Complainant’s rights when registering the disputed domain name.

Given this composition, it is illogical to believe that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name without specifically targeting the Complainant. Additionally, “WANX” is the hanyu pinyin transliteration of the Chinese character “万”, derived from the Complainant’s original Chinese product name “通义万象” (TONGYI WANXIANG”), and has no inherent meaning in the English language. This further supports the conclusion that the Respondent’s choice of domain name was deliberate and intended to evoke the Complainant’s brand.

Moreover, the Respondent is using the website associated with the disputed domain name to offer information about the Complainant’s product and to sell pricing plans for access to the services – all without authorization. This conduct demonstrates clear knowledge of and familiarity with the Complainant’s brand and business and further confirms that the Respondent lacks any rights or legitimate interest in the disputed domain name. Registration of a domain name with the knowledge of the complainant’s trademarks is evidence of bad faith.

Additionally, the Respondent should reasonably be considered to have been aware of the Complainant’s trademarks at the time of registering the disputed domain name, given the timing and surrounding circumstances. Specifically, the Respondent registered the disputed Domain Name immediately after the Complainant publicly announced the rebranding of its AI product to “WAN” in January 2025, and on the same day – February 25, 2025 – exactly when the Complainant filed trademark applications for “WAN” with the CNIPA, HKIPD, and UKIPO. Furthermore, the registration took place on the very same day the Complainant secured its domain name “wan.video” on February 24, 2025, and almost two years after the registration of the domain name “wanxai.com” on November 4, 2023. These facts strongly suggest that the Respondent acted with knowledge of the Complainant’s brand and intentionally targeted it.

With respect to the bad faith use of the disputed domain name, the prominent and unauthorized use of the Complainant’s trademarks on the associated website suggests that the Respondent aims to exploit the reputation of the Complainant’s trademarks. This is done by diverting Internet users searching for WAN 2.1. model to its site for commercial gain, through the deliberate creation of confusion regarding the origin, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of the website.

Previous Panels have consistently held that the use of a domain name in connection with illegal activities such as impersonation and passing off can never confer rights or legitimate interests on a Respondent.

In addition, it is worth noting that the Respondent has previously registered another domain name, namely rednote.us, which clearly refers to the well-known international “Red Note” name for Xiaohongshu, the major Chinese social networking and e-commerce platform. This pattern of conduct demonstrates a consistent practice of targeting established trademarks and strongly supports the inference of bad faith registration and use under paragraph 4(b)(ii) of the Policy.

Despite a cease-and-desist letter being sent to the Respondent, no response was received. The Respondent’s failure to reply is a clear indication of bad faith, as it demonstrates a lack of willingness to engage or address the trademark infringement concerns raised by the Complainant, which the letter specifically aimed at ceasing the unauthorized use of the Complainant’s trademarks and transferring the disputed domain name.

Lastly, the Complainant refers to previous decisions issued by other Panels in which domain names incorporating the same trademarks were ordered to be transferred to the Complainant. These decisions confirm the consistent recognition of the Complainant’s rights. 

Response
No administratively compliant Response has been filed.

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy).

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the Respondent to have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy).

The Complainant has, to the satisfaction of the Panel, shown the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith (within the meaning of paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy).

The Panel is satisfied that all procedural requirements under UDRP were met and there is no other reason why it would be inappropriate to provide a decision.

The disputed domain name registered on February 24, 2025, consists of the Complainant's prior trade mark WANX and the gTLD .run. A gTLD does not distinguish a domain name from a complainant's trade mark, and so the disputed domain name is identical to the Complainant's prior registered trade mark WANX for the purposes of the Policy.

 The Respondent is not authorised by the Complainant and is not commonly known by the disputed domain name, as demonstrated by the data registration details for the disputed domain name.

 The disputed domain name has been pointed to a website using the Complainant's WAN mark as a masthead to offer artificial intelligence services in competition to those of the Complainant, offering a version of the Complainant's own software without authorisation. The use is commercial and so is not legitimate non-commercial fair use. The use does not make clear that the site is not associated with the Complainant and is confusing, and so is not a bona fide offering of goods or services. It is registration and use in bad faith, confusing customers for commercial gain, and disrupting the Complainant's business in full knowledge of the Complainant's rights.

The Respondent appears to have registered another domain name containing the trade mark of a third party suggesting a pattern of bad faith.