Brazilian firm guilty of reverse domain name hijacking

Dental firm went following domain name used by Korean dentist.

A three person WIPO panel has found JJGC Industria E Comercio de Materiais Dentarios S.A. of Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

The firm, which specializes in dental implants, filed its case over the domain name NeoDent.com. It uses the domain name NeoDent.com.br.

NeoDent.com is owned by someone in Korea who actually uses the domain name for a dental practice called NEO Dental Clinic. The domain name was registered in 2002.

The complainant failed to mention this use by the respondent in its complaint, instead pleading that the respondent has never been known by this name:

As stated by the Response, the Respondent has operated a dental clinic under the name NEO Dental Clinic since 2002. The Respondent has provided evidence of public use of the Neodent name (in English as well as Korean), which is something the Complainant could and ought to have verified prior to submission of the Complaint with an allegation, quoted in Section 5.B above, that the Respondent has never been known by the disputed domain name, and its pleading is misleading to the point of attempting to deceive the Panel. This alone has been held grounds for finding RDNH.

That’s one of the reasons the panel found JJGC Industria E Comercio de Materiais Dentarios S.A. guilty of abusing the UDRP process.