Clothing firm loses cybersquatting dispute for Beaumont.com
It’s also a city in Texas.
Stone Fashion Group B.V., which owns a fashion brand called Beaumont, has lost a cybersquatting dispute it filed against the domain name Beaumont.com.
The owner of the domain name did not respond to the complaint, but the panelist noted that he lives in Texas. Beaumont is the name of a city in Texas outside of Houston.
Based on Whois data, it appears the domain owner was the original registrant in 1995.
Stone Fashion Group stated that the Beaumont brand has existed for “more than 45 years” but did not provide evidence of this. Its registered trademarks all postdate the domain registration. If it did indeed operate the brand back then, it’s a wonder why it’s just now getting around to filing a UDRP. Surely, it would have been aware of Beaumont.com being registered when it registered the domain Beaumont.eu.
Based on the WIPO decision, it appears that Stone Fashion filed the UDRP following inquiring regarding the domain name and receiving an asking price of $2 million.
Stone Fashion’s Beaumont brand uses the domain name Beaumont.eu.
Had the domain owner responded, this case would be a candidate for reverse domain name hijacking. Perhaps it ought to have been even without the response.
