Panelist says Complainant knew or (should have known) that it couldn’t prove registration and use in bad faith.
Gesab, S.A., a company in Barcelona that sells a product called DeskWall, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking by filing a cybersquatting complaint against the domain name DeskWall.com.
The company first tried to by the domain name for $500. The owner requested $6,399.
In the World Intellectual Property Decision, the panelist notes that the “Complainant argues that the fact that Respondent registered the disputed domain name before Complainant’s trademark registration should not sway the Panel’s analysis considering Respondent’s business strategy.”
Well, that is a requirement of UDRP that can’t be ignored. It’s difficult to argue that the domain was registered in bad faith to target a company when that company didn’t have rights when the domain was registered.
The panelist noted:
…In the Panel’s opinion, Complainant knew or at least should have known that it could not prove registration and use in bad faith. As explained earlier, however, Complainant came nowhere near building a case for this essential UDRP element. Complainant should have known that its failure to even allege a senior right in the DESKWALL mark was likely to prove fatal to its prospects in this proceeding.
2. Furthermore, before launching this case, Complainant contacted Respondent and offered to buy the disputed domain name for USD 500, without offering any arguments that it possessed a legal claim relating to the disputed domain name. In the Panel’s view, this is another example of a case where a party, frustrated in its attempt to buy a domain name, resorts to the ultimate option of an artificial claim untethered to facts or the plain wording of the UDRP.
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