Background check company filed complaint in abuse of cybersquatting policy.
E-Renter USA Ltd, which operates a background screening site for renters at E-Renter.com, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name ERenter.com.
The company filed a UDRP with World Intellectual Property Organization against Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis.
The owner of the background check company registered the domain name in 1999, but apparently didn’t use it for the business until many years later. The first use was after Vertical Axis registered the domain name.
The three person panel of Nicholas Smith, Debra J. Stanek and Neil Brown found that E-Renter didn’t prove a lack of rights in the domain name, nor did it show that the domain name was registered and used in bad faith.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the panel wrote:
In the view of the Panel this is a Complaint which should never have been launched. The Complainant knew that the Domain Name was registered before the Complainant came into existence and close to 8 years before it acquired any registered rights in the E-RENTER Mark.
The Complainant made no attempt to demonstrate the existence of any rights prior to the registration of the Domain Name, nor any basis on which the Respondent could have been aware of the Complainant at the time of registration of the Domain Name.
Given the nature of the Policy and previously decided cases that the requirement of proving registration and use in bad faith is conjunctive the Complainant’s submissions that the Respondent registered the Domain Name in bad faith were arguments that had no reasonable prospects of success.
Brownlie Evans Wolf & Lee, LLP represented the complainant. ESQwire.com racked up another reverse domain name hijacking win as Vertical Axis’ representative.
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