Panelist finds Mister Auto SAS filed complaint in abuse of policy despite domain name owner not responding.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found Mister Auto SAS in France guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for the domain name MisterAuto.com.
The decision by panelist John Swinson comes despite the domain name owner not responding in the case. Yet it was a fairly easy decision; the domain was registered well before the Complainant existed and the Complainant made no argument to address this.
It’s not surprising that Mister Auto wanted MisterAuto.com. It uses the hyphenated domain name Mister-Auto.com to sell auto parts. It sent a cease & desist letter to the domain name owner and never heard back.
Swinson summed up Mister Auto SAS’ action in filing the UDRP:
The Panel considers the Complainant launched the proceedings out of desperation as its prior attempt to contact the Respondent went unanswered (and the webpage did not resolve – revealing no clues as to the Respondent’s possible motives) but without a reasonable chance of success and as such in the circumstances constitutes an abuse of the Administrative Proceeding.
Mister Auto was represented by Cairn Legal in Belgium.
Wow! Remind me to never use Cairn Legal for my UDRP needs. What a waste of time and money just to bill more legal fees!
I own 3DPrintingCeramics.com and I found yesterday that a German company has registered and developed 3D-Printing-Ceramics.com
A different German company offered me $2200 USD for Drugalyser.ca, I accepted, they reneged, and 2 years later, I received an email with an attachment stating the Canadian Trademark for “Drugalyser” and an offer of $200 for the name, with of course a veiled threat.
Sleazy.
European companies often have a stronger sense of entitlement than North American companies do.