Case Number: D2019-1584
Complainant: Sarah Lonsdale and Stuart Clark
Represented by: Stuart Clark
An Australian partnership doing business as a rock and gem-stone retailer has been found guilty of attempted Reverse Domain Name Hijacking after using a UDRP filing as an attempt to take the domain, RockNCrytals.com, from an aftermarket reseller, HugeDomains.com. The case was filed July 5, 2019. Sarah Lonsdale and Stuart Clark, of RocknCrystals, were found guilty of their RDNH on September 6, 2019.
The pair have a business registration dating to June of 2013, in Australia, and they utilized a pending United States trademark application, filed on June 27, 2019, as solidifying its pre-existing common-law trademark status for the mark, RocknCrystals. However, their trademark application was filed precisely two weeks after HugeDomains.com had acquired the domain, on June 13, 2019.
For its part, HugeDomains.com showed the duo had made an inquiry on June 19, 2019, about purchasing the domain, which also pre-dated their U.S. trademark application.
The three-member panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization wrote that the attempt to grab the domain, after failing to acquire it from HugeDomains.com, was a thinly-veiled attempt to use the UDRP process as a “secondary strategy” to acquire rockncrystals.com.
“Having failed to purchase the disputed domain name from the Respondent on June 19, 2019, it is apparent that Complainant attempted to use the [UDRP] Policy to accomplish its goal,” the panel wrote.
Christopher J. Pibus presided over the panel, which included Philip N. Argy and Richard G. Lyon.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2019-1584