Case Number: D2022-3368
Complainant: Candy Cloud IP LLC
Represented by: Williams McCarthy LLP
A flavored-coffee company, operating under the name Candy Cloud IP, has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking for attempting to grab the domain candycloud.com by using the UDRP process. The domain is owned by Mike Morgan, of Canada, although the domain, itself, is privacy protected. The case was filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization, which issued its RDNH ruling on November 14, 2022.
The coffee company, from Machesney Park, Illinois, had argued its recent trademarks, issued over the summer of 2022, for the phrase “candy cloud” gave it superseding rights to the domain name, even though the registrant has owned candycloud.com since 2008. The U.S.-based complainant, represented by Williams McCarthy, LLP, also submitted a laundry list of alleged offending uses of the domain by the registrant, which the complainant argued deprived the respondent of any legitimate rights to use the domain.
The three-member WIPO panel was quick to find RDNH, of its own volition. “[T]he Complaint was always doomed to fail and, indeed, the Respondent pointed out to the Complainant, in correspondence before the Complaint was filed, that the disputed domain name predated the asserted trademark,” the panel wrote. “Nonetheless, the Complainant persisted.
“In these circumstances, the Panel considers that a finding of reverse domain name hijacking is appropriate,” the panel concluded.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2022/d2022-3368.pdf