Finance company filed reverse domain name hijacking case to get SixthStreet.com.
When I first saw that the domain name SixthStreet.com was in a cybersquatting dispute, I wondered if it was a couple of bar owners on the famed Sixth Street in Austin that were duking it out.
That wasn’t the case, but the domain owner did pick the name because of the famous entertainment district in Austin.
TPG Sixth Street Partners, LLC, an investment firm headquartered in Dallas, filed a cybersquatting complaint against David Frieze, who runs a real estate company called Sixth Street Properties, LLC.
Frieze acquired the domain in 2016 for his company, which is named after the street in Austin. He hasn’t set up a website but uses it for email.
According to the UDRP decision from World Intellectual Property Organization, Frieze registered and began using the disputed domain name with an email address for his real estate business more than a year before the Complainant first applied to register its TPG SIXTH STREET PARTNERS marks, two and a half years prior to the Complainant first use of the marks in commerce, and three years prior to the USPTO’s registration of the Complainant’s marks.
Panelist William R. Towns noted that this would have been obvious to anyone who looked at the Whois record. He said that the case was groundless and filed in abuse of the policy, which is called reverse domain name hijacking.
Strugar says
Who represented that clever Complainant?
Andrew Allemann says
Dilworth Paxson LLP
JOHN CHAN says
People tried because of funny stupid judgements before