Seattle bar Monkey Loft tries reverse domain name hijacking

Domain was registered before the bar’s incorporation.

A National Arbitration Forum panel has found that the Seattle bar Monkey Loft Lounge tried to reverse hijack the domain name MonkeyLoft.com.

Monkey Loft filed a cybersquatting claim against the domain name even though it was registered before the bar was incorporated.

To win a cybersquatting dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, a Complainant must show that the current registrant registered the domain after the Complainant obtained trademark rights.

To get around this issue, the Complainant argued that the effective date of the registration was December 29, 2021. However, the DomainTools historical Whois report it submitted clearly shows that the current registrant has owned the domain since at least January 2013, which was months before the bar was incorporated.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, panelist Steven M. Levy noted:

Here, the Complaint, who is represented by professional counsel, “asserts the effective registration date of the Disputed Domain is December 29, 2021” despite its own evidence, the DomainTools Report, reflecting Respondent as the Registrant of the disputed domain name on January 13, 2013 which is prior to Complainant’s earliest claim of trademark rights on March 5, 2013. This is, at best, an inattentive review of the evidence or, at worst, a misrepresentation in the Complaint. Regardless, as Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii) requires a showing that the disputed domain name was registered in bad faith, Complainant or its counsel either knew or should have known that it would be impossible, under any argument around the present facts, to satisfy the plain language of this sub-paragraph and, thus, that it had no possibility of success against the monkeyloft.com domain name notwithstanding the fact that it was registered or otherwise acquired by Respondent prior to the existence of its rights in the MONKEY LOFT mark.

Attorney Steven L. Rinehart represented the bar. A search at udrp.tools shows this is the fourth time one of his clients has been found to have tried reverse domain name hijacking.

The domain name owner did not respond to the dispute.