Estate firm tries to reverse hijack domain name — French real

Firm tried to get .com that matches its .fr domain name.

A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has found (pdf) that K Holding, which owns the real estate firm Junot Investissements, attempted to reverse hijack the domain junot.com.

The firm operates a website for luxury real estate at junot.fr.

M. Thestrup of Best Identity registered the domain name in 2000. He stated he registered regarding 3,000 domain names matching surnames.

K Holding did not have a trademark registration for its brand until 2014, and appears not to have had an online presence until 2000.

The respondent lived in London at the time of the registration and later moved to Denmark. He stated he had no idea there was a French real estate firm using the domain.

K Holding attempted to buy the domain with multiple “reasonable offers,” one of which was $310.

The three-person WIPO panel found that the complainant didn’t show the domain was registered and used in bad faith, and admonished it for its filing:

The Panel notes that the Complainant has legal representation. It filed the Complaint following an unsuccessful attempt to acquire the disputed domain name. It presents no circumstances from which the inference could be drawn that the Respondent had any awareness of the Complainant when he registered the disputed domain name 14 years ahead of the Complainant purchased trademark rights. It argues, implausibly, that the Respondent’s passive holding combined with his unwillingness to negotiate a sale with the Complainant demonstrated an intention to exploit the Complainant’s brand. In the Panel’s view, the Complainant must have known that it could not succeed on the third element of the Policy.

SAS Illouz Avocats represented the complainant, and Lewis & Lin represented the domain owner.