Shoe company loses cyberquatting complaint.
A three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has denied a UDRP for FeetFirst.com, with one panelist finding reverse domain name hijacking.
Nilson Group AB filed the cybersquatting complaint. It owns a number of shoe brands, including a store that called Feet First. It owns the domain name PutFeetFirst.com.
The domain name is owned by Frontline Media. Frontline argued that “Feet First” is a common phrase.
Indeed, a search at Google shows a bunch of footwear stores have adopted this phrase in their names. This is on top of the popular idiom.
The panel found that Nilson Group failed to show that Frontline lacked rights or legitimate interests, and failed to show that it registered the domain in bad faith.
Panelist Neil Brown went a step further, finding Nilson Group to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.
While some see Brown as respondent-friendly, he started his comments by stating, “Contrary to what some might think, this Panelist only rarely makes a finding of RDNH.”
Frontline Media was represented by ESQwire.com.
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