Case Number: D2018-0981
Complainant: Compare Ninja Ltd.
Represented by: Assaf Cohen Sidon
Israel-based Compare Ninja Ltd., which operates ticket-compare.com, a site that lets users compare and buy tickets to sporting events and concerts, has been found guilty of attempted Reverse Domain Name Hijacking after attempted to gain control of the domain ticketcompare.com. The firm, represented by Assaf Cohen Sidon, attempted to argue it held trademarks that gave it rights to the domain. However, Compare Ninja Ltd. began operating its current site in May 2017, while the domain was registered by its current owner in 2004.
In issuing its ruling, the three-member WIPO panel observed Compare Ninja does not actually have a specific, registered trademark for the term, “ticket compare”, further noting that the company’s brief operating period had not accrued any significant common-law rights.
“The Panel is not persuaded on balance that, given the evidence submitted by the Complainant, the generic, or at best descriptive term ‘ticketcompare’ is recognised as the distinctive identifier of the Complainant, or has acquired secondary meaning such that it would qualify for trademark protection,” the decision reads.
“In this instance, the Complainant ought to have recognised, under any fair interpretation of facts reasonably available prior to filing the Complaint … its Complaint was doomed to fail,” the panel wrote.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2018-0981