Food supplements firm tries “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking

Panelist finds “Plan B” attempt to secure domain through cybersquatting claim.

A French nutrition supplements firm tried to reverse hijack the domain name nutriforce.com, a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has determined (pdf).

Nutriforce France SAS, which registered the domain nutriforce.fr for its business in 2023, filed the dispute.

The domain was purchased in an expired domain auction in 2020 by domain investment firm SyncPoint, Inc. NameBio records show that the firm paid $5,050 for the domain.

In December 2024, the Complainant offered $80 to buy the domain name. SyncPoint, apparently sarcastically, responded to the inquiry by saying it could just donate the domain to the firm. When the Complainant became frustrated that SyncPoint wasn’t following through, SyncPoint asked why it was being so impatient regarding a domain that was worth only $80 to it.

Since SyncPoint purchased the domain ahead of Nutriforce France SAS showed any trademark rights in the name, this case was dead on arrival.

Panelist Adam Taylor found it was an example of “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking:

…The Complaint included no details or evidence regarding the date of commencement of the Complainant’s trading activity, which the Complainant ought to have known was an notable point. And then, following the Respondent raised the timing issue, the Complainant replied with a vague and unsupported statement which was likely designed to give the misleading impression that the Complainant did possess prior rights.

In what is known as “Plan B”, the Complainant made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire the disputed domain name without giving any hint that the Complainant possessed a legal claim to the disputed domain name and, when that approach failed, the Complainant filed the Complaint without any plausible legal basis. For example, aside from the fatal flaw that the Complainant’s rights post-dated the Respondent’s buyout of the disputed domain name, the Complainant has raised baseless arguments that unreasonably ignore established Policy precedent, e.g., attacking the right of the Respondent to deal in domain names for profit whereas it is well established that this practice of itself is entirely legitimate in the absence of any intent to target a complainant’s trade mark…

Both parties were internally represented.