Alternative iPhone app store loses dispute for domain name.
The company behind an app store for jailbroken iPhones has lost a dispute to get the domain name Cydia.com.
Saurikit, LLC launched its alternative to Apple’s app store in 2008 at cydia.saurik.com. But Cydia.com was registered back in 2002.
In its dispute Saurikit made the argument that UDRP does not require a domain to be registered in bad faith — only used in bad faith. Like the panel in SimplyBusiness.com, this panel thoroughly refuted this idea of retroactive bad faith registration.
The learned panelist’s proposition in Mummygold would introduce a considerable leap from retrospective discovery of bad faith registration on an analysis of the facts, to a retroactive creation of bad faith registration that may fly in the face of the facts.
The present Panel can find no evidence that the Respondent, by registering, if speculatively, the Latin genus name Cydia as a domain name in 2002, was at that time in a state of mind to act in bad faith towards the holder of a trademark that would not exist for another 5 years. Trading or intending to trade in domain names, in and of itself and absent any circumstance proven to the contrary, is not illegitimate.
That’s not to say that Cydia.com’s owners didn’t provoke Saurikit. After the alternative app store launched Cydia.com changed from a pay-per-click page to a forum about Apple products.
Sensing that this dispute has not been fully resolved, the panel declined to find reverse domain name hijacking.
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