WIPO panel rules in favor of domain name owner.
The owner of LionsDen.com since 1995 can keep his domain name, a World Intellectual Property Organization UDRP panel has decided.
Mile, Inc., which owns The Lion’s Den retail brand of adult entertainment products, filed the complaint arguing that the domain name infringed on its rights.
The company faced an uphill battle since the domain name is generic and was registered some 15 years before it filed the complaint. However, the domain name owner had recently parked the domain name and it showed adult advertisements.
Still, the domain owner successfully argued that he didn’t register the domain name in an attempt to infringe on the complainant’s brand. That’s a fair bet.
The complainant suggested to the panel that the current owner of the domain name may not have actually been the original registrant in 1995. But the panel said the complainant didn’t provide any evidence of this, such as historical whois from DomainTools. Perhaps the complainant’s lawyers did check DomainTools, but they would have found that the current owner has owned the domain name as far back as DomainTools records go to 2001.
Interestingly, one of the reasons the panel determined that the domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith was because “Respondent is not a professional domainer”.
It looks like Mile, Inc. tried to steal the domain from a rightful owner.
What a dirty, crooked company Mile, Inc. is for trying this.
Mile, Inc. should be ashamed for trying to be a wanna-be thief.
Dirty, crooked, bastards Mile, Inc. are IMHO.
the domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith was because “Respondent is not a professional domainer”.
Makes me wonder what the panel considers when someone is a proffesional domainer or not..
To be fair, the issue of him not being a professional domainer wasn’t the main crux of the decision. It was just another point in the case.
This is almost scary:
the domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith was because “Respondent is not a professional domainer”.
Just never know where one of these UDRP’s is gonna land do you…
Andrew, I have to disagree with your statement “The company faced an uphill battle since the domain name is generic and was registered some 15 years before it filed the complaint.”
From what the decisions I’ve seen, the complainant never faces an UPHILL BATTLE. I am sure that if the claimant had been a ‘professional domainer’ the arbitrator would have found that the domain was registered in bad faith.