Case Number: D2022-3219
Complainant: Inversiones MCN S.A.S.
Represented by: Holland & Knight LLC, Columbia
A Bogata-based company that permits users to buy and sell property online has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking after attempting to transfer the domain habi.com via the UDRP process. Inversiones MCN S.A.S. had filed a UDRP at the World Intellectual Property Organizaiton against U.S.-based Tamarack Marketing, of Springville, Utah, acting as an agent for Habi Partners, which operates habi.com as a home-buying website. A single-member panel of WIPO handed up the RDNH ruling on October 20, 2022, after finding the U.S. concern had begun operations several months prior to the Columbian company.
“In this case, there is clear evidence that the Respondent selected HABI as its brand in March or April 2019”, wrote John Swinson, the WIPO panelist. “The Complainant was not established until July 2019, and there is no evidence of use of HABI by the founders of the Complainant prior to this date.”
“Complainant should have been aware from this fact alone that its chances of success in this dispute were grim,” Swinson stated, in his RDNH finding.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2022/d2022-3219.pdf