Monte’s WEIRD lawsuit to overturn .delmonte decision — Here’s Del

Del Monte International uses cybersquatting and UDRP rules in attempt to overturn .delmonte objection.

Yesterday I wrote regarding Del Monte International (DMI) Gmbh’s lawsuit against Del Monte Corporation (DMC) following the latter won its objection to the former’s application for the .delmonte top level domain.

The court has now published the complaint (pdf).

On the surface, I understand the complaint. DMI is trying to argue that the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel made the wrong decision. But how DMI positions the complaint is, well, weird.

It appears that DMI took a lawsuit that’s filed when someone loses a UDRP and wants it overturned and just changed it to read “Legal Rights Objection”.

The complaint for declaratory relief asks the court to say that DMI is not in violation of the Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act by seeking to register the TLD .delmonte (huh?) and to order DMC to withdraw its (by now closed) Legal Rights Objection against DMI.

DMI then goes on to claim the U.S. District Court in Central District of California has jurisdiction over the case using UDRP’s “mutual jurisdiction” guidelines.

In a UDRP, the complainant has to agree to submit to the jurisdiction of either the domain owner’s location or his/her registrar, ought to the respondent file suit as a result of case. The complainant elects one of the jurisdictions when it files the case.

So DMI stated that WIPO has stated that UDRP rules apply to fresh gTLDs (hmmm) and that “jurisdiction is proper in this court, since the Registrar with whom the Application was filed, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”), is located in Marina del Rey, California…”

See what I mean? Weird. Creativity points at a minimum.

The rest of the complaint describes why DMI believes why the WIPO panel decision was “manifestly erroneous”.

It may be right, although filing a lawsuit may not overturn the objection.