Another WTF UDRP filing.
A World Intellectual Property panelist has found Anyclean Premium Limited guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in one of the most baffling and misleading UDRP cases I’ve ever read.
Anyclean runs a cleaning service and uses the website AnyClean.co.uk. The domain name at issue is Any-Clean.com, which is owned by Jethro Denahy and used to promote another cleaning service.
Before I get into the claims that Anyclean Premium made, I need to point out who represented the firm. You’re going to be so shocked by the claims made in this case that you’ll assume the complainant either represented itself or hired an ambulance chaser to represent it.
But the complainant was represented by Bromhead Johnson, a firm that focuses only on IP matters. In fact, its domain name is intellectual-property.uk.
Here are some of the claims Bromhead Johnson made with its client:
Any-Clean.com was being used as a PPC site linking to products competitive with the complainant.
Where in the world did they get this idea? Here’s what is on the website:
The domain owner lost a previous UDRP.
The complainant states:
it is highly likely that the domain name was registered or acquired by the Respondent in order to prevent the Claimant from using its mark in a corresponding domain name. The Respondent has engaged in such conduct previously, as shown in WIPO administrative panel decision, IndusInd Bank Limited v. DomainCA (Whois Protect Service) / Yungu Jo, WIPO Case No. D2014-0811
Um, take a look at the respondent in that previous case. WTF?
Some weird claim about results on the site “searched through the homepage”.
It’s difficult to describe what the complaint was trying to get across. Here’s what the panelist wrote about this:
The Panel notes the Complainant also relies upon various results it has obtained when various terms (“anyclean”, “ANYCLEAN”, “any-clean” and ANY-CLEAN”) are (according to the Complainant) “searched through the homepage [of the Respondent’s Website]”. The Panel does not understand what the Complainant means when it says “searched through the homepage”. The results in question, which the Complainant has placed in evidence, are not a search of the content of the Respondent’s Website and appear to the Panel to simply be the results of a Google search for the relevant term, albeit presumably one that was launched when viewing the Respondent’s Website.
The domain owner bought the domain in order to sell it to the complainant.
Again, take a look at how the domain is being used.
My first thought after reading this case was that surely it was an example of cut-and-paste lawyering gone horribly awry. But the complaint included printouts of some of the incredibly wrong assertions. So I honestly have no idea how this case was filed by IP lawyers. It makes no sense at all.
Logan says
Just because they are lawyers doesn’t mean they are good lawyers. Somebody had to finish in the bottom 10% of their law school class you know…
Andrea Paladini says
That’s crazy, those are would-be IP lawyers … and I’m being kind … lol 😀
Garth says
Statements made by the complainant line up with anyclean.com details.
Andrew Allemann says
The only similarity in the ownership is that it’s someone in Seoul, right?
John Berryhill says
Same thing happened in the brisas.com case. The complaint included descriptions of another site entirely. It is likely they are pursuing multiple cases and engaged in some overly inclusive copy-pasting from one complaint to the other.
JR says
As domainers, these inconsistent UDRP decisions should terrify you. Soon, the renewals as bad faith and retroactive registration as bad faith will beome accepted reasons for transferring domains to trademark owners. I don’t believe it will get easier for domain speculators, but more difficult. Why? Even today, the most noted and wealthiest domain investors are getting hit with UDRP and are considered by corporate America to be ‘cyber-squatters’; these decisions are canaries in the coal mine…