A domain expire, failed to win it back in cybersquatting case — Noon.com let

Firm’s cybersquatting claim fails for domain name it let expire.

Noon, a popular ecommerce site in the United Arab Emirates, has lost a cybersquatting dispute it filed against the domain name noon.ae. (.Ae is the country code domain for the United Arab Emirates.)

The firm, which uses noon.com, previously owned noon.ae. It let the domain name expire and claims this was done inadvertently.

A brokerage firm specializing in expired .ae domains auctioned the domain in January.

Omar Tarabichi bought the domain at auction and set up a site called Noon Learning on it.

Tarabichi also owns other generic .ae domain names.

Noon is not only an English-language word but also the 25th letter of the Arabic alphabet. The Complainant includes this letter ( نَ ) in its logo.

The cybersquatting policy for .ae domains requires that the domain either be registered or used in bad faith. A three-person World Intellectual Property Organization panel found (pdf) that Noon did not show either of these to be the case. It denied the dispute and ordered the domain name to remain with Tarabichi.

Hadef & Partners represented the Complainant, and John Berryhill represented the domain owner.