Francois Carrillo successfully defended his valuable nuro.com domain with help of attorney John Berryhill.
Francois Carrillo, owner of the popular domain news aggregator Domaining.com, has successfully defended (pdf) his domain name nuro.com in a UDRP. The Complainant was also found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
Canadian healthcare company NURO Corp. filed the UDRP. The company was incorporated in 2017. Carrillo acquired the domain name in 2015, so this case was dead on arrival on the issue of bad faith.
The panel found that the domain was not registered and used in bad faith. Oddly, it did not find rights or legitimate interests for Carrillo, which I think was a mistake. But the most important thing is that the panel decided the overall case correctly and also found NURO Corp. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
Many panels are hesitant to find a Complainant that is not represented by outside counsel to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. But in this case, it was clear that the Complainant had access to outside counsel when filing its case.
The panel found reverse domain name hijacking because the Complainant filed the case even though the facts demonstrated the complainant knew it could not succeed on the issue of bad faith registration and use.
John Berryhill represented Carrillo.
For the record, the WIPO Panel concluded that:
a. “the Panel finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to a trademark in which the Complainant has rights.”
b. “the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.”
There is no mistake at that level whatsoever Andrew.
The matter of “Bad Faith” in this decision is being reviewed further.
Francois – “The company was incorporated in 2017. Carrillo acquired the domain name in 2015, so this case was dead on arrival on the issue of bad faith.”
Dead on arrival is correct — there’s no way the Respondent could have targeted your company’s trademark TWO YEARS before your company even existed. C’est impossible!
Stop whining/being cheap and do what a normal, rational businessperson would do: acquire the domain name in a normal, commercial transaction like other successful companies do every single day of the year.
Shame on you. 2016 you registered your nuro.ca .
Nuro.com has been registered since 1996 and then acquired legally by Francois. You think you can just wake up and lie to steal another man’s digital asset?
You need to educate yourself and do the right thing and not try to be a wannabe thief and get shamed again.
You still have the guts to show your face to defend your unethical move .
Go get yourself a broker and do the right thing and acquire the name if you so badly want it than try to prove a dead case .
And if you care to know ,check the site below,so you dont find yourself here among the wannabe thieves.
HallofShame.com
Do the right thing and reach to acquire or rebrand your name .
You clearly do not know the laws. But, you know he did not buy/register the name to profit from your trademark. What you’re doing is equal to attempted theft. You cost the owner money to defend! Will you make it right?
Bad faith must exist at the time of registration.
Next time don’t pick a brand unless you can secure the matching .com domain name or you are content with your matching .ca version. There are more than 2000 TLDs available.
Your business isn’t the rightful owner of any property that pre-existed it and there are many other businesses using NURO as a brand and as a company name, including some in Canada.
Maybe Nuro, Inc. of Mountain View California will want this domain name. They are building robotic transport vehicles and self-driving delivery robots.
This case is much more complex than what it appears and I am not going to make any further comments on this matter at this time. Thank you.
Good, because any further comments from you would be a waste of breath, energy, and time. You will not win any case you think you may have regarding Nuro.com because you have no legal leg upon which to stand. Man up and buy the domain name from its rightful owner or rebrand.