French firm files .eu dispute in bad faith
Panel finds Jean-Marie Loirat, and Kinetik Sport filed cybersquatting dispute in abuse of the policy.
A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panelist has found that Jean-Marie Loirat and Kinetik Sport filed a cybersquatting dispute in bad faith.
The Complainants filed the dispute over the domain name kinetiksports.eu, registered to Nicky Allard and KinetikSport GmbH. Shockingly, they failed to mention a long-running business relationship between the Complainants and Respondents, as well as an ongoing trademark dispute.
Panelists don’t like when a Complainant makes key ommissions in a cybersquatting complaint, and these omissions were critical to the case.
WIPO panelist Adam Taylor wrote:
By leaving out these crucial background details, the Complaint gave the misleading impression that the Respondent was an unrelated competitor who had egregiously sought to impersonate the Complainant by misappropriating its “Kinetik” name and logo. If the Respondent had not filed a Response, an injustice might have been done.
GBA Avocats in France represented the Complainants and Finnian & Columba represented the Respondents.
