Cooking oil firm attempts reverse domain name hijacking

It’s the second RDNH finding in as many weeks for the same law firm.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has found Alba Edible Oils Pty Ltd to have tried reverse hijacking the domain AlbaOil.com.

The domain is registered to FindYourDomain.com, a domain investment firm that purchased the domain in 2021.

The U.S.-based Respondent showed that it was not targeting the Australian producer of cooking oils when it purchased the domain. FindYourDomain purchases many domain names that start with “alba” or end with “oil”, and panelist Nick Gardner agreed that there was clear evidence “that it obtained the Disputed Domain Name since of its lexical content and offered it for sale as part of its legitimate business trading in domain names.”

Alba Edible Oils appears to be confused regarding some aspects of domain names. For example, it suggested that the domain was for sale if people paid GoDaddy’s brokerage service; of course, that is a default for all domains at GoDaddy.

Furthermore, the firm stated the searches showed the Respondent’s phone number was associated with scam calls. It was searching GoDaddy’s Domains By Proxy phone number.

Gardner assessed that the Complainant failed to prove the last two elements of the UDRP (rights or legitimate interests, registration and use in bad faith).

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, he wrote:

The Complainant ought to have appreciated that establishing registration and use in bad faith in respect of a domain name which was a conjoining of two words and where there was no evidence of any targeting of the Complainant was likely to involve difficult considerations. The Complaint itself contained the following passage: “Annexed to this Complaint and marked as Annex 21 is a copy of the trade mark search results from the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Brand Database for the brand name ‘ALBA’ for goods or services comprising ‘oil’. The only businesses with registered trade marks for the brand ‘ALBA’ (solus) for oil related goods are the Complainant, and three third parties: Alba Thermal Springs Pty Ltd (Australia) in respect of various cosmetic oils, Avalon Natural Products, Inc. (USA) in respect of sun-tan oil, and ALBA Group plc & Co. KG (Germany) in respect of industrial oils.” In the view of the Panel that information ought to have alerted the Complainant and its advisers to the fact that there were multiple businesses that could legitimately have an interest in the Disputed Domain Name and that absent any evidence of targeting directed at the Complainant the Complaint was not likely to succeed. A simple Internet search ought to have alerted the Complainant or its advisers to the fact that “alba” has multiple different meanings counting various geographic locations; as a given and family name; as part of a scientific taxonomy classification scheme; and with various other meanings in languages other than English. The Panel agrees with the Respondent’s rhetorical observation that “AlbaOil.com could naturally serve an energy exploration venture in Scotland, an olive-oil exporter from the city of Alba, an aromatherapy brand specializing in Salvia alba (white sage) essential oil, or a cosmetics firm marketing ‘dawn-inspired’ face oils”. In the view of the Panel these sorts of possibilities ought to have been apparent to the Complainant and its advisers. The Panel also considers the Complainant’s argument based on what it incorrectly alleged was the Respondent’s telephone number was misplaced and inaccurate.

Bennett Litigation and Commercial Law represented the Complainant, and Law Offices of Grant G. Carpenter represented the Respondent.

This isn’t Bennett Litigation and Commercial Law’s first reverse domain name hijacking case; it represented the Complainant in the recent RDNH for Tyrone.com.