Case Number: D2022-2208
Complainant: Titmouse, Inc.
Represented by: Mandour & Associates
The animation studio Titmouse, Inc. has drawn a ruling of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking after using the UDRP process to transfer the domain titmouse.com from its original registrant, who bought the domain in 1998. A sole panelist at the World Intellectual Property Organization made the ruling when facts in the case revealed the company was formed two years after the domain was registered. The RDNH ruling was handed up August 9, 2022.
Titmouse, Inc. attempted to allude to a registration in anticipation of a trademark, but the panelist, W. Scott Blackmer, was hardly swayed. “There are specific cases where a complainant can demonstrate that a respondent anticipated the trademark registration,” he wrote, “[T]hese could arise in circumstances where the mark had already acquired distinctiveness in common law while owned by a predecessor in interest. The Complainant offered no evidence of this, however.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2022/d2022-2208.pdf