eBook company fails to get Pocketbook.com through UDRP.

The owner of Pocketbook.com has successfully defended its domain name in a UDRP filed by Pocketbook International SA, which sells eBook readers under the brand name Pocketbook.

SiteTools, Inc., the owner of the domain name, has a trademark for the term Pocketbook.com. It acquired the domain name in 2010.

The three-member National Arbitration Forum panel found that Pocketbook International didn’t show that the owner lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain name, and also didn’t show that it was registered and used in bad faith.

The Complainant was frustrated that some websites that meant to link to its products on pocketbook.ru accidentally linked to Pocketbook.com. How this is evidence that the Respondent did something wrong is beyond me.

It also claimed that the Respondent got a trademark for Pocketbook.com to frustrate the UDRP case. But it got it in 2012, which means it did a good job predicting a company would file a complaint seven years later.

An obvious use of Pocketbook.com—and the one for which the domain is currently being used—is for financial-related products.

The Complainant was represented by Anna M. Vradenburgh of One LLP. She appears to have worked with a number of law firms over the past decade. She has won some cases, but lost others including disputes over DeepThroat(.)com.

The Respondent was represented by John Berryhill.