Case Number: NAF 1822198
Complainant: Karma International, LLC
Represented by: Kristin Kosinski
A three-member panel of the National Arbitration Forum has handed up a ruling of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking against the company, Karma International, LLC, for attempting to use the UDRP process to acquire the domain karma.com. Karma International was represented by Kristin Kosinski, of the firm of Cislo & Thomas, LLP, of California. The domain owner, David Malaxos, was represented by attorney David E. Weslow, of the firm of Wiley Rein, LLP.
In issuing its decision, the panel noted the complainant appeared to be using a pending trademark application to assert rights to the domain, even though karma.com had been registered by its current owner, Mr. Malaxos, nearly 24 years before the trademark application was submitted. Panelists also wrote that the word, karma, is “an ordinary dictionary word which might describe or allude to any number of goods or services”. Essentially, panelists found Karma International had no trademark rights, either under common law interpretation or otherwise.
Additionally, panelists were highly critical of the fact Karma International had tried previously and unsuccessfully, in 2009, to acquire karma.com.
“This is not the picture of an assiduous infringer slowly engineering the downfall of the rightful trademark owner,” the panel concluded. “Indeed, on one construction of the evidence, it could be said that the Complaint was the design of a party disappointed by its failure, ten years ago, to secure the purchase of the domain name, who has turned the Policy against Respondent, indifferent to the integrity of that party.”
The ruling was handed up February 15, 2019.
Source: https://www.adrforum.com/DomainDecisions/1822198.htm