Case Number: D2020-0595
Complainant: Cyarx Technologies Ltd.
Represented by: Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz
An Israel-based security firm, Cyarx Technologies Ltd., has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking by a single-member panel at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Cyarx Technologies had filed a UDRP with WIPO on March 10, 2020, against a private owner, Taylor Robinson, from the United States, in an effort to gain control of the domain name, siemplify.com.
Attorneys for Cyarx Technologies, from the law firm of Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz, argued their client’s 2017 trademark for the term “siemplify” overrode Mr. Robinson’s rights to have the domain, which he registered in 2011. The Cyarx argument was their trademark gave them exclusive right to the domain, since Mr. Robinson was not making use of the domain in any way, and had indicated an interest in selling the domain to Cyarx.
However, Mr. Robinson’s own attorney, Douglas M. Isenberg, from The GigaLaw Firm, argued it was Cyarx that first approched Mr. Robinson. Robinson’s lawyers further stated it would be impossible to have a bad-faith domain registration that predates the existence of a company. Cyarx did not begin operations until 2014.
The sole panelist, Mr. Flip Petillion, concurred with that reasoning, writing, “[G]iven the fact that the Disputed Domain Name was registered years before the Complainant even existed, the Complainant does not explain how the Respondent could have targeted the Complainant or its trademark at the time he acquired the Disputed Domain Name.”
In finding Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, Mr. Petillion stated two core reasons for his ruling. The first was that the domain had been registered years prior to the existence of the complainant’s business. The second reason was that the complaint appeared to have been brought only after a failed attempt to purchase the domain, a point on which Mr. Petillion wrote his belief that Cyarx had tried to misdirect the panel.
“[T]he Complainant only produces the correspondence related to its latest attempt, but the correspondence originating from the Complainant suggests that more attempts were made in the past,” Mr. Petillion wrote.
The RDNH ruling was handed up May 17, 2020.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2020-0595