Case Number: D2018-1207
Complainant: Crypto World Journal Inc
Represented by: Abecassis Foad
A Delaware-based video company specializing in crypto-currency educational programs was found guilty of attempted Reverse Domain Name Hijacking by a single-member panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The WIPO ruling was handed up July 30, 2018.
The Dover, Delaware company, Crypto World Journal, stated it held a trademark right for the domain name cwj.com, claiming it had first used the mark, CWJ, in commerce in May of 2017, eventually filing for a trademark in May of 2018. However, no trademark had been issued at the time of the complainant’s filing. Additionally, the domain name was originally registered in 1999, and it was acquired in 2016 by the respondent, Lin Xiao Feng, a Chinese national, represented by Muscovitch Law, P.C. Those dates easily precede the May, 2017 date in which Crypto World Journal says it first used the CWJ mark in commerce.
In issuing its ruling, the panel noted that the Crypto World Journal did not actually exist until February 2018, long after the current domain owner acquired cwj.com. The panelist further found the complainant’s attorneys “unreasonably ignored established UDRP panel positions set out in WIPO Overview 3.0.” Finally, the panelist quoted a portion of an email the complainant sent to the domain owner, initially offering to purchase the domain and requesting a sales price. The email was provided by the respondent, and directly contradicted the UDRP filing, the panelist wrote, in which the complainant asserted that there had been no communications between the two.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2018-1207