Panelist says Complainant knew or (should have known) that it couldn’t prove registration and use in bad faith.

Gesab, S.A., a company in Barcelona that sells a product called DeskWall, has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking by filing a cybersquatting complaint against the domain name DeskWall.com.

The company first tried to by the domain name for $500. The owner requested $6,399.

In the World Intellectual Property Decision, the panelist notes that the “Complainant argues that the fact that Respondent registered the disputed domain name before Complainant’s trademark registration should not sway the Panel’s analysis considering Respondent’s business strategy.”

Well, that is a requirement of UDRP that can’t be ignored. It’s difficult to argue that the domain was registered in bad faith to target a company when that company didn’t have rights when the domain was registered.

The panelist noted:

…In the Panel’s opinion, Complainant knew or at least should have known that it could not prove registration and use in bad faith. As explained earlier, however, Complainant came nowhere near building a case for this essential UDRP element. Complainant should have known that its failure to even allege a senior right in the DESKWALL mark was likely to prove fatal to its prospects in this proceeding.

2. Furthermore, before launching this case, Complainant contacted Respondent and offered to buy the disputed domain name for USD 500, without offering any arguments that it possessed a legal claim relating to the disputed domain name. In the Panel’s view, this is another example of a case where a party, frustrated in its attempt to buy a domain name, resorts to the ultimate option of an artificial claim untethered to facts or the plain wording of the UDRP.

Panelist finds Mister Auto SAS filed complaint in abuse of policy despite domain name owner not responding.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found Mister Auto SAS in France guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for the domain name MisterAuto.com.

The decision by panelist John Swinson comes despite the domain name owner not responding in the case. Yet it was a fairly easy decision; the domain was registered well before the Complainant existed and the Complainant made no argument to address this.

It’s not surprising that Mister Auto wanted MisterAuto.com. It uses the hyphenated domain name Mister-Auto.com to sell auto parts. It sent a cease & desist letter to the domain name owner and never heard back.

Swinson summed up Mister Auto SAS’ action in filing the UDRP:

The Panel considers the Complainant launched the proceedings out of desperation as its prior attempt to contact the Respondent went unanswered (and the webpage did not resolve – revealing no clues as to the Respondent’s possible motives) but without a reasonable chance of success and as such in the circumstances constitutes an abuse of the Administrative Proceeding.

Mister Auto was represented by Cairn Legal in Belgium.