Slaughtered in cybersquatting dispute — GigPig gets

The domain was registered well ahead of the firm existed.

GigPig, A UK firm that connects musicians with venues for gigs, has been led to the slaughterhouse in a cybersquatting dispute.

The firm filed a UDRP against GigPig.com, a domain that was registered in 2001.

GigPig was founded in 2021, although it claims it has been working on its plans for the business since 2012. Further, it alleged that the domain changed hands in 2017, but the evidence for that was weak.

At any rate, the firm showed little evidence to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel that the domain registrant targeted it with the domain registration that occurred ahead of the firm existed. Thus, the dispute was dead on arrival.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, panelist Kathryn Lee wrote (pdf):

Here, the disputed domain name was registered well ahead of the Complainant even came into existence, so it would have been impossible for the Respondent to have registered the disputed domain name to target the Complainant and its “nascent” mark. The Complainant ought to surely have known that the Complaint could not succeed based on these facts, and proceeding with this Complaint can only be viewed as an attempt to deprive a registered domain-name holder of a domain name.

Therefore, the Panel finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith, in an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.

GigPig will be stuck using GigPig.uk. The owner of GigPig.com has raised the price of the domain significantly since receiving the UDRP.