Reglikedomain industry desk

Beats $200 billion healthcare giant Novartis in UDRP — Frank Schilling

Beats $200 billion healthcare giant Novartis in UDRP — Frank Schilling

9 year delay in filing UDRP hurts pharma firm’s claim of disruption to its business.

ClearCareFrank Schilling has successfully defended the domain name ClearCare.com in a UDRP filed by Novartis AG.

Novartis, which has a $200 billion market cap, offers a line of contact lens cleaning solutions under the name Clear Care.

Schilling (through attorney John Berryhill) noted that his business involves registering expired domain names and parking them with ad links unrelated to any trademark usage. ClearCare.com was parked with links related to “care” but not contact lenses.

This helped Schilling win the rights/legitimate interest issue.

The doctrine of laches played a big role in the case as well. Schilling registered the domain in 2005 and Novartis just came following it in 2014. The panel noted:

Complainant cannot credibly claim that its business has been seriously disrupted by the clearcare.com domain name or the resolving webpage, since Respondent has been using the disputed domain name for nine years prior to Complainant’s bringing this action.

Novartis AG UDRP failure

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