Domain Name Wire | Domain Name News & Website Stuff

Domain Name Industry News and Website Stuff

Featured Domains

BidPal hit for reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Company with a history of cybersquatting claims is found to have filed a case in abuse of the UDRP.

OneCause’s parent company has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

BidPal, Inc., a company that helps charities raise money under the name OneCause, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name OneCause.org. The company has a history with UDRP and cybersquatting challenges.

The company lost a UDRP it filed in 2012 to get the domain name BidPal.com. It then hired a new layer and filed a federal lawsuit in 2014 in another effort to get the domain. That suit was settled  and BidPal got the domain name.

Then, late last year the company filed a UDRP to get the domain name OneCause.com. The case was withdrawn and it appears the parties settled as BidPal now uses OneCause.com.

This year it filed a UDRP against OneCause.org, and it was for this case that the company was found to have filed the case in abuse of the policy.

The current domain owner registered the domain in 1999. BidPal didn’t file for a trademark until this year. It also inquired about buying the domain first. In other words, it was a classic Plan B reverse domain name hijacking case.

Panelist Fernando Triana wrote:

In the present case, the disputed domain name was registered in 1999, for Respondent to express to storage his documents, use the email service and maintain a blog, which was described to be his “one cause”.

Complainant registered its trademark in 2018 before the USPTO, and before the first use of the trademark, Complainant offered Respondent to buy the disputed domain name, thus, demonstrating knowledge of the previous existence of the disputed domain name.

Furthermore, Complainant failed to file any evidence concerning lack of rights or legitimate interest and bad faith.

Moreover, Complainant tried to confuse the Panel regarding Respondent’s bad faith, as the Complaint asserted that Respondent is profiting from Complainant’s reputation, which is not evidenced and probably nonexistent as the trademark ONECAUSE was recently registered.

This makes me wonder what the circumstances of the OneCause.com case were and what the settlement was.

Share8
Tweet
Share
Email

AUSACORP, S.L. hit for reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

Barcelona company files cybersquatting claim in abuse of the UDRP.

AUSACORP, S.L. has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking in a cybersquatting dispute it filed over the domain name Excelway.com.

The company started a brand called Excelway but didn’t inform the World Intellectual Property Organization panel about the date it originated the brand. It appears to have been sometime this decade but the owner of Excelway.com registered the domain in 2003.

AUSACORP tried to buy the domain and the domain owner responded with a counter-offer. The company then filed the UDRP but didn’t mention its overture to buy the domain. Instead, it said that the domain owner tried to sell it to them.

Given that the domain appears to have been registered before the brand existed, the domain couldn’t have been registered in bad faith. Furthermore, the panel found that AUSACORP filed the complaint in abuse of the policy (reverse domain name hijacking):

In this case, the Panel considers that the Complainant omitted or misrepresented key communications between the Complainant and the Respondent. The Complainant’s earlier offer to purchase the Disputed Domain Name was only disclosed by the Respondent. The Panel considers the Complainant filed the Complaint only after several failed attempts to purchase the Disputed Domain Name at what it considered to be a reasonable price.

The Panel considers the Complainant launched the proceedings out of desperation as its prior attempt to purchase the Disputed Domain Name from the Respondent were unsuccessful but without a reasonable chance of success and as such in the circumstances constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.

The Complainant was represented by Herrero & Asociados. The domain name owner represented himself.

Share17
Tweet
Share
Email

Flying Dog Brewery tries to hijack domain name

by — Policy & Law 12 Comments

Brewery makes “blatant and intentional misrepresentation”, panelist says.

Flying Dog Brewery was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. Photo from FlyingDogBrewery.com.

Craft brewer Flying Dog Brewery has been found by a World Intellectual Property Organization panel to have attempted reverse domain name hijacking.

The brewery uses the domain name FlyingDogBrewery.com but wants the domain name FlyingDog.com. That domain was registered in 1996 and used by its owner to promote his software company for many years.

The brewery first tried to buy the domain name in 2001. It invited the domain owner to tour the brewery and made a $19,000 offer to buy the domain. The owner declined.

Then, earlier this year, a broker reached out to the domain owner working on behalf of an unnamed client. He offered $15,000 for the domain. The domain owner declined and asked for $225,000. Shortly thereafter, Flying Dog Brewery filed the UDRP.

Amazingly, the Complainant stated in the filing that the Respondent retained an agent to sell the disputed domain name to the Complainant, even though it was clearly the Complainant that initiated the discussion.

Panelist William Towns wrote:

The Complainant could easily have discovered from a brief Internet search the Respondent’s historical use the disputed domain name before filing the Complaint…The Complainant either did not do so, or having done so elected to conceal from the Panel known facts unfavorable to the Complainant. The Complainant submitted a barebones complaint unsupported by any evidence, and blatantly misrepresented to the Panel that the Respondent had hired an undisclosed agent seeking to sell the disputed domain name to the Complainant at an exorbitant price. The record, however, confirms that it was the Complainant who retained a domain name broker. The Complainant’s blatant and intentional misrepresentation as described above constitutes a clear violation of section XIII, paragraph 21 of the Complaint.

The brewery was represented by Offit│Kurman. The domain owner was represented by Thomas P. Howard LLC.

Share17
Tweet
Share
Email

HAHN Kunststoffe tries to reverse domain hijack Hanit.com

by — Policy & Law 1 Comment

Company filed UDRP after inquiring about buying domain name.

HAHN Kunststoffe GmbH has been found to have engaged in “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Hanit.com. The company markets a high-tech plastic under the HANIT mark.

According to the decision, domain name owner Kwangpyo Kim of Mediablue Inc. in South Korea registered the domain name in 2001. At that time, the Complainant had a German trademark but did not have much of a presence in Asia.

15 years later, in 2016, the Complainant inquired about buying the domain. It received a response through Uniregistry offering the domain for $20,000.

It didn’t buy the domain then and inquired again in 2018. At that time the asking price had increased to $68,000 (then lowered to $60,000). The Respondent attached an Escrow.com screenshot from another sale for $74,980 as a comparison.

HAHN Kunststoffe filed the complaint after that.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the three-member World Intellectual Property Organization panel wrote:

Indeed, the Complaint does appear to reflect, as the Respondent concluded, the Complainant’s “Plan B” after failing to register a domain name corresponding to its brand at some point after 1993 and determining not to purchase the Domain Name when it encountered a high price in 2016 and a higher one in 2018. The Panel does not countenance abuse of the UDRP system as an alternative to dealing with the consequences of business decisions.

ESQwire.com represented the Respondent.

Share16
Tweet
Share
Email

Defunct app maker hit with reverse domain name hijacking

by — Policy & Law 2 Comments

App maker files UDRP and then shuts down its business.

The maker of a now-defunct app called Yish has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name Yish.com.

The company used various domain names including yishapp.com, yish.co, yish.app, yish.io and yish.menu. It understandably wanted Yish.com, but that domain was registered by Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis back in 2001. Yish didn’t file for a trademark and began using the term until 2017.

You can understand why the panel found the app maker to have filed the case in bad faith. But this case is a bit odd: before the decision was reached, the app maker informed World Intellectual Property Organization that it was shutting down its business and asked the panel to terminate the case.

Knowing that it had a slam dunk case and likely reverse domain name hijacking, Vertical Axis (now called Blue Nova) objected to terminating the case. Therefore, the panel completed its review and found reverse domain name hijacking.

Blue Nova was represented by ESQwire.com.

Share463
Tweet
Share
Email