IP Law Daily, TRADEMARK—9th Cir.: Finding of cybersquatting upheld in ‘lambo.com’ domain name case, (Oct 14, 2025)

By Deirdre Kennedy, J.D.

The Ninth Circuit agreed that Automobili Lamborghini showed the registrant had a bad faith intent to profit from the domain name.

An individual who was the registered owner of the domain name “lambo.com” was not entitled to retain it because the evidence implied that the registrant had a bad faith intent to profit from the mark LAMBORGHINI, owned and registered by Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., the manufacturer of Lamborghini automobiles, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has held. The individual held no trademark rights in the word LAMBO, never developed the site in any substantive way, and engaged in indirectly extortionate conduct by offering to sell the domain to the Lamborghini company for $75 million (Blair v. Automobili Lamborghini S.P.A., No. 24-6839 (9th Cir. Oct. 9, 2025)).

Plaintiff Richard Blair, an investor and developer of internet domain names, purchased the domain lambo.com for $10,000 from a third party in 2018. Defendant Automobili Lamborghini SpA (Lamborghini), a manufacturer of automobiles frequently referred to as “Lambos,” initiated arbitration with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2022 claiming it was entitled to ownership of the domain and sought a transfer of the domain name under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

After WIPO ruled in favor of Lamborghini, Blair filed suit under the Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA) seeking a judgment that he was entitled to retain ownership because at the time of registration there was no bad faith intent to profit off the use of another’s trademark. He also sought a declaration that he was the rightful owner of lambo.com and that his use was lawful.

In October of 2024, the District Court in Arizona held that Blair indeed had a bad faith intent to profit from the mark and granted Lamborghini’s motion for summary judgment. Blair appealed.

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit upheld the decision, stating that the district court correctly found that the first four of nine statutory factors used to determine bad faith intent to profit from a mark weighed in Lamborghini’s favor.

As to the first factor—“the trademark or other intellectual property rights of the person, if any, in the domain name”—Blair conceded that he has no intellectual property rights in the word “lambo.” As to the second factor, whether the domain name is “commonly used to identify” Blair, Blair conceded that he adopted “Lambo” as a personal moniker only after acquiring. The third factor also favored Lamborghini, as Blair’s limited development of did not show a “prior use” of the domain name “in connection with the bona fide offering of any goods or services.” For the same reason, factor four, “bona fide noncommercial or fair use of the mark,” favored Lamborghini as well.

The district court also correctly found that factors six and nine weighed in Lamborghini’s favor. As to factor six—attempting to “transfer, sell, or otherwise assign the domain name... for financial gain without having used” or intended to use it—although Blair had made only limited use of, he listed the domain for sale at $75,000,000, a price the district court rightly described as “indirectly extortionate.” As to the ninth factor—whether the mark is “distinctive” or “famous”—“[t]here is no doubt” that, as the district court held, “the LAMBORGHINI mark is distinctive and famous as defined in 15 U.S.C. § 1125(c)” since “it is widely recognized by the general public in association with the world-famous automobiles it manufactures.”

Factors seven and eight, on the other hand, favored Blair. Lamborghini did not claim that Blair provided “material and misleading false contact information” when registering, nor did it contest that he provided “accurate contact information” throughout his ownership of the domain name. And the record did not demonstrate that Blair had a history of cybersquatting. The court also assumed, without deciding, that factor five—relating to “intent to divert consumers from the mark owner’s online location”—weighed in Blair’s favor.

Taken on balance, the few factors that favored Blair did not outweigh those that favored Lamborghini. The district court thus correctly concluded that Blair exhibited a “bad faith intent to profit” from Lamborghini’s mark for the purposes of Section 1125(d)(1)(A)(i) of the ACPA and did not err in granting summary judgment to Lamborghini.

The Case is No. 24-6839.

Judge: Thomas, H.

Attorneys: Brett Evan Lewis (Lewis & Lin, LLC) for Richard Blair. Lauren Watt (Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox, PLLC) for Automobili Lamborghini S.P.A.

Companies: Automobili Lamborghini S.P.A.

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