I’m confused after reading this UDRP decision and reviewing the domain’s details
This morning I began writing an article about a UDRP for CloudInsure.com. My general thesis was that this should have been a case of reverse domain name hijacking. Once I started investigating, I had more questions than I had answers.
According to the National Arbitration Forum decision, CyberRiskPartners, LLC filed the case against Drew Bartkiewicz.
National Arbitration Forum Panelist M. Kelly Tillery included this timeline in the decision:
3/17/10 Domain Name First Registered
10/1/11 Complainant LLC Formed
11/14/12 Filing Date TM Application by Complainant
11/30/13 First Claimed Use of Mark by Complainant
2/3/15 Complainant TM Registration on U.S. Supplemental Register
12/17/18 Complainant Filed Complaint
I should note that the 2012 trademark filing was on an intent-to-use basis. Also, note that the registration is on the supplemental registrar.
I checked historical Whois records and verified that the current owner was the 2010 registrant.
Given these facts, this UDRP was dead on arrival; the domain owner registered the domain prior to the Complainant even existing.
But things got confusing when I went to view CyberRiskPartners’ website.
CyberRiskPartner’s website says the company is the holding company of CloudInsure.com, LLC. If you click on CloudInsure.com it forwards to CloudEnsure.org, a name that was just registered on January 8.
Additionally, the Complainant submitted marketing materials and a business card to the USPTO in 2014 that included the CloudInsure.com domain name.
And if you go back to archives of CloudInsure.com, it says it’s a subsidiary of CyberRiskPartners, LLC.
All of this would lead you to believe that the Complainant had control of the domain name at some point. But nothing in the decision alludes to this.
I reached out to both the Complainant and Respondent this morning and did not immediately hear back.
What am I missing?
Interesting find. The current web site of the Complainant is a copy of their own Cyberfactors dot com. Old snapshots from 2011 show no link to CloudInsure dot com: https://web.archive.org/web/20110831134546/http://cyberfactors.com:80/index.php/about-us-2
However, in 2013, alongside the tm application time, the reference appears: https://web.archive.org/web/20130829161819/http://cyberfactors.com/contacts/
In March 2013, their mark application was refused, as “merely descriptive” : http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn85779209&docId=OOA20130318142139#page=1
The application was further refused in October 2013, and in a further reconsideration exchange, the following sample was produced: http://tsdr.uspto.gov/documentviewer?caseId=sn85779209&docId=SPE20140416160309#docIndex=12&page=1
The domain CloudInsure .com was produced as evidence of use in April 2014: https://tsdrsec.uspto.gov/ts/cd/casedoc/sn85779209/AAU20140416160309/3/webcontent?scale=1
And now for the kicker: CloudInsure .com was displaying that content in 2012: http://web.archive.org/web/20121122023221/http://cloudinsure.com:80/
Was there a contractual agreement between Complainant and Respondent, or was the domain on loan? Archive.org shows no URL forwarding, and as late as March 2018 the content was the same as: http://web.archive.org/web/20180320194242/http://cloudinsure.com/
Hence my confusion. Yet the decision didn’t state anything about a relationship between the parties. Weird.
Andrew, the Respondent was a co-founder of the companies involved: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drew_Bartkiewicz
Thanks. How in the world was that not included in the decision? Surely the parties brought it up?