QIQ.com to remain with domain name owner after WIPO decision.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has denied a UDRP filed against the domain name QIQ.com. However, she denied a reverse domain name hijacking claim without giving any sort of reason.
Based on the facts presented to the panel, respondent Netico, Inc registered QIQ.com in 1999, more than a decade before complainant QIQ Communications Pty Ltd had any rights to the QIQ name.
Therefore, panelist Gabriela Kennedy ruled that the domain name was not registered in bad faith.
QIQ Communications made at least one argument in its case that it knew was false:
The Respondent registered and is using the Disputed Domain Name to intentionally attempt to attract for commercial gain, Internet users to its website or other online location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the Complainant’s trademark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation or endorsement of the Respondent’s website or other online location.
This is, of course, impossible given the date of registration compared to the trademark rights. Yet Kennedy wrote:
The Panel cannot conclude that the Complainant filed its Complaint in bad faith for the purposes of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, and mere lack of success of the Complaint is not in itself sufficient for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
The Panel is of the opinion that the Complainant has not filed its Complaint in bad faith as an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
So apparently you can lie in a UDRP pleading and it’s not reverse domain name hijacking.
Yet another “NO RDNH” ruling from Gabriela Kennedy.
One of the requirements of the UDRP is that the complainant must prove that the domain name was registered in bad faith (paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the policy).
The complainant could never prove that the domain name was registered in bad faith by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant’s trade mark (as claimed by the complainant in their submission) very simply because the complainant’s trademark did not exist back in 1999.
Even Gabriela Kennedy herself, in her decision states: “As the Disputed Domain Name was registered on March 28, 1999, which was over a decade before the Complainant registered its QIQ trade mark, it is not possible for the Respondent to have been aware of the Complainant’s trade mark registration at the time of registering the disputed domain name and therefore could not have registered it in bad faith with the Complainant in mind.”
The complainant was represented by IP Service International Pty Ltd, Australia so presumably they understand the rules and the fundamental requirement to prove that the domain name had been registered in bad faith, yet despite knowing this, they proceeded to submit the UDRP case in an attempt to grab the long registered pre-existing domain name, so WHY NO RDNH ??????????????