Entrepreneur files claim against domain registered before his trademarks.
An entrepreneur and fund manager in India has been found guilty of trying to reverse hijack the domain name CEOAthlete.com.
Anshul Singhal, who operates a leadership development platform called CEO Athlete, filed the claim. (A Google search in the U.S. for “anshul singhal” +”ceo athlete” returned only a Pinterest board.)
The complaint is based on trademark applications in India, all of which are pending except for a figurative mark that registered in December 2025.
That’s well after the domain was registered in 2016, and the complaint does not address this key issue. There’s no way a domain could have been registered in 2016 to target a brand that didn’t exist until years later.
The domain registrant did not respond to the complaint, but World Intellectual Property Organization panelist David Taylor found this was a case of reverse domain name hijacking:
As noted above, the disputed domain name was registered on March 23, 2016, whereas the Complainant has sought to rely upon Indian trademark applications for CEO ATHLETE, one of which matured to registration only in 2025, nearly nine years after the Respondent registered the disputed domain name. No evidence of any earlier relevant rights, registered or unregistered, has been produced. On a plain reading of the Policy and well-established UDRP principles, the Complaint as filed lacked a reasonable prospect of success. The Complainant was represented by counsel and referred in its submissions to views as expressed in WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition and prior decisions, which underscores that the determinative timing issue under the third element of the Policy should have been apparent.
Luthra & Luthra Law Offices represented Singhal.
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