Yo, where have you been?
A Brazilian company has lost a UDRP it filed against a domain name it let expire a decade ago.
CIA. Industrial H. Carlos Schneider registered the domain name Ciser.com in 2003 but it expired in 2006. 10 years later, in 2016, it filed a UDRP against Ashantiplc (domain investor Sahar Sarid’s company). Sarid registered the domain in 2006 when it expired.
The complainant not only failed to explain the delay, but it also didn’t reveal to the panel that it once owned the domain name.
Here’s what the three-member World Intellectual Property Organization panel had to say:
In the instant case, the disputed domain name has clearly been registered and used for speculative purposes. However, there is no evidence that Respondent had Complainant’s mark in mind when registering the disputed domain name. In addition, Complainant provides no explanation as to why it abandoned the registration of the disputed domain name and waited for more than a decade to file a complaint. As a matter of fact, Complainant did not reveal to the Panel that it previously held the disputed domain name. In the circumstances of the case, and absent evidence to the contrary, it seems that Complainant acquiesced in Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name.
Ashantiplc was represented by John Berryhill.
ciser by DomainNameWire on Scribd
Peter says
I was involved in a similar situation. A large multinational had an internal memo that stated that they did not want to incur the cost of registering the .com version of the .ca domain they were using. They also stated in that memo that they also decided not to incur the cost of registering other names they had trademarked. This came out in discovery. This was back in the 1990’s, in Canada. They had begun the process to sue us.
Before I registered the domains, I contacted the company and offered them my expert domain services as an employee. They declined and assured me that they had top men working on the issue.
I am unable to comment on the final result, but we were happy.