Have been reverse domain hijacking had the domain owner responded… — This could
Your comadre wouldn’t approve.
The National Arbitration Forum has found against Texas firm Comadre Commerce, LLC in arbitration over the domain name Comadre.com.
This is despite the owner of the domain name not responding. Had the owner responded, this case could have been an easy case of reverse domain name hijacking.
First things first, comadre is a generic term meaning “godmother” in Spanish.
Second, Comadre Commerce stated it had a trademark registration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. But it only attached a printout from the USPTO concerning a Trademark Office Action Response. Here’s why: it really just has pending application that was filed following the respondent registered the domain — and it was filed as an intent to use application. So there’s no way the complainant could argue that the respondent registered the domain name in bad faith. It tried anyway.
The complainant also claimed that it made a number of reasonable offers to the domain owner, which the owner denied or ignored.
There’s also the puzzling assertion that (in the panelist’s words) “Respondent’s unauthorized use of Complainant’s image on Respondent’s various websites constitutes copyright and trademark infringement in violation of Title 17 U.S.C. Section 106(a) of the Copyright Act of 1976.”
Given that the complainant tried to buy the domain name multiple times and the domain was registered prior to its intent-to-use trademark filing and it’s a generic term and the Comadre Commerce was represented by counsel, I’d argue this is a clear case of reverse domain name hijacking.
