Panelist finds the case was brought in bad faith.
A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has determined that Aromatech, Ltd tried to reverse hijack the domain aromatech.com.
The case was dead on arrival because the current owner of the domain name registered it five years before Aromatech was incorporated. This means it was impossible that the domain owner registered the domain to target the non-existent company.
Aromatech, Ltd made a supplemental filing after the domain owner responded to the dispute with his date of acquisition. The panel summarized the supplemental filing and how it didn’t address the central issue of the case:
The Complaint submits in its supplemental filing essentially that (1) the Respondent was not the original owner of the disputed domain name; and (2) the Respondent’s continued passive holding of the disputed domain amounts to bad faith.
The Panel finds that the above submissions are not relevant to the central issue of bad faith registration and use, on the facts of this case. Faced with the Respondent’s incontrovertible evidence of his ownership of the disputed domain name since at least October 2006, the Complainant should have assessed the proper approach to follow noting that the date on which the Respondent acquired the disputed domain name is the date the Panel would consider in assessing the registration in bad faith.
Panelist Sebastian M.W. Hughes found (pdf) reverse domain name hijacking:
This is a proceeding in which, on the facts, the Complainant and its legal representatives ought to have recognised it would not be possible to establish bad faith registration, in light of the fact the Complainant did not come into existence, and did not commence using its Trade Mark, until 5 years after the date of first registration of the disputed domain name. Nor was there any evidence to suggest that the Respondent, as the current registrant of the disputed domain name, acquired the disputed domain name after the Complainant had been incorporated and commenced use of the Trade Mark.
K & G Law LLC represented the Complainant. No representative is listed for the domain owner.
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