Company paid $55,000 for domain name before it was stolen.
Corporação Industrial do Norte, S.A (CIN) has recovered the domain name CIN.com, a domain name it says was stolen from it, through a UDRP.
The company acquired CIN.com for $55,000 last summer. It alleges the domain name was then stolen and transferred to domain name registrar eName. (eName has apparently become a favorite registrar for domain name thieves. I see lots of allegedly stolen domain names ending up there.)
CIN filed a UDRP to get back control of the domain name. UDRP is sometimes used to recover a stolen domain name, but the complainant has to show some sort of trademark rights in the domain name in order to effectively use UDRP for this purpose.
The panel noted that the domain name owner didn’t bother to respond to the case, and thus it was likely (in light of the allegations) that it didn’t have any sort of rights in the domain name and “registered” it in bad faith.
Louise says
Have others had success with UDRP against Ename thieves?
Andrew Allemann says
It’s hard to tell if it’s the same people or not. Thieves generally don’t use their actual name.
KC says
The key point in this case is that Corporação Industrial do Norte owns live trademark on CIN in a number of countries. If they did not have TM or common law rights, they would not be able to use UDRP to reclaim the domain name.