Panelist lets complainant off easy — Another WIPO

Domain clearly wasn’t registered in bad faith but panelist doesn’t find RDNH.

Yesterday I wrote regarding how a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist let6 California clothing firm Reformation off the hook for reverse domain name hijacking.

Just a day later, here’s another case in which I question the panelist’s decision to not find reverse domain name hijacking.

KION Material Handling GmbH is a sizable German firm that adopted the name KION in 2006. The owner of Kion.com registered the domain name in 1996.

It seems that the owner used the domain for a printing business that has closed down. Likely since it couldn’t track down the owner to try to buy the domain name, Kion filed a cybersquatting complaint.

The firm knew it couldn’t prove cybersquatting under the actual rules of UDRP, so it got creative. It argued that the domain owner had relinquished its rights in the name by closing and that it was renewed in bad faith.

Panelist Nick J. Gardner did the correct thing by ruling that the domain wasn’t registered and used in bad faith. But Gardner declined to find reverse domain name hijacking on the grounds that, although KION knew its complaint shouldn’t pass UDRP muster, it at least tried to make arguments to overcome this:

The status of the Respondent is unusual and the Complainant had anticipated the difficulties that arose in its case and presented carefully reasoned arguments addressing those difficulties. Whilst the Panel has not accepted those arguments it does not consider it appropriate to make a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.

I don’t care what the status of the respondent is now, the domain was clearly not registered in bad faith so the “carefully reasoned arguments” are actually poorly reasoned arguments.