Case Number: 1972226
Complainant: Hot Pancakes Ltd.
Represented by: R. Omar Riojas / Goldfarb & Huck Roth Riojas
An intense corporate legal spat, originating in the Bahamas, with potential companion cases in at least three other countries, spilled into the National Arbitration Forum in the form of a UDRP filing for seven domains, owned by the respondent in the current case. However, the end result was the complainant, Hot Pancakes Ltd., was denied the transfer of any of the domains, and as to two of them, a ruling of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking was made against the complainant.
At issue were the domains bellaforrest.com, bellaforrest.net, bellaforrest.org, forrestbooks.com, morebellaforrest.com, shadebooks.com and harleymerlin.com. Complainant is suing the respondent in the Bahamian Supreme Court for the domains, as property of a corporation, and included evidence of a trademark owned by the company for the mark “Bella Forrest”. While the mark is valid in the United States and the United Kingdom, the respondent in the UDRP proceeding is also defending the companion case in the Bahamian court, claiming rights to the corporation, as well.
In an effort to not prejudice any pending legal proceedings, the three-member panel of the NAF declined to transfer any of the domains, but it singled out shadebooks.com and harleymerlin.com for a ruling of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, saying the complainant knew the domains had no similarity, of any kind, to the trademark the complainant stated was being violated. “It is plain from a simple comparison of Complainant’s mark with these two names that Complainant could not possibly prevail on its claim for them,” the panel wrote.
The NAF ruling was handed up December 30, 2021.
Source: https://www.adrforum.com/DomainDecisions/1972226.htm