In Arbitration, But Who’s This Lazy Panelist? — MIA.com Saved
MIA panelist is MIA.
The owner of MIA.com has successfully defended her domain name from an attack by Mosaic International, LLC. But the panelist in the case seemed more eager to submit an answer and get his check than to pay attention to the issues.
Mosaic International has a line of hair accessories and appliances marketed under the MIA brand. It started using the brand in 2004 and filed a trademark application for MIA in 2007.
The owner of MIA.com registered the domain name in 1995, nine years ahead of Mosaic started using the brand in commerce and twelve years ahead of it filed a trademark application. As such, Mosaic necessarily failed to prove the domain name was registered in bad faith.
National Arbitration Forum panelist Karl V. Fink obviously found that the domain name wasn’t registered in bad faith. But he copped out of the rest of the decision. The domain owner requested a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, which was certainly a winnable argument in this case.
But Fink denied the charge, only writing that RDNH had not been proven by the respondent. Perhaps if Fink had bothered to submit a finding on the first two charges of the complaint (similar to trademark, rights or legitimate interests), he would have seen how egregious this case was. I understand that a panelist doesn’t have to make a finding on each topic if he finds in favor of the respondent, but I think that was in order here given the plausible case of RDNH.
