Cannabis firm tries reverse domain name hijacking
Panel agrees with domain owner that the case was filed in bad faith.
A UDRP panel has ruled that Cronos Group, a Canadian cannabis firm, tried to reverse hijack the domain name CronosGroup .com.
Cronos Group Inc. uses the domain name TheCronosGroup .com for its website.
It approached the owner of CronosGroup .com to acquire it and filed a UDRP with the Canadian International Internet Dispute Resolution Centre following receiving a price it thought was too high.
The owner of the domain purchased it for $2,849 in a SnapNames expired domain auction in 2023. The Complainant has been around since 2017.
The Respondent stated it was unaware of the Complainant when it purchased the domain. It noted that it purchases many domains in the form keyword+group and many other firms use the name Cronos.
Following finding that the domain was not registered and used in bad faith, the panel ruled that this was a case of “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking:
What may appear as Plan B to a respondent may to a complainant simply be protecting its trademark from what it regards as predation. The fact that supports RDNH in this case hinges on both the commonness of the term “Cronos Group” (it was by now a registered domain name preexisting the Complainant’s first use of its mark in commerce) and the general use by others offering noninfringing goods or services using the same commercial sign. Unless there is evidence of actual knowledge of a complainant and its mark and buyout for an illicit purpose, no inference can be drawn of bad faith. The Panel recognizes that in this case, the Complainant was represented in-house by a person likely unfamiliar with the jurisprudence of the UDRP. This is not an excuse for commencing a UDRP proceeding. For these reasons, the Panel finds that the Complainant launched this complaint without any evidence that the Respondent had or could have had actual knowledge of its mark when it purchased the dropped domain name at auction and that it is, indeed, a case of a Plan B attempt to deprive the Respondent of its right to hold and sell its assets on its own terms.
It’s interesting that the panel considered that the domain was previously registered ahead of Cronos Group Inc.’s existence as part of its decision. Although the notable date for UDRP is when the current registrant purchased the domain, the previous registration shows that the idea of the name wasn’t exclusive to the Complainant.
