Reality into Denver med spa’s cybersquatting complaint — Panel injects
Panelist rules case was filed in bad faith.
A Denver-area med spa attempted reverse domain name hijacking, a World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has ruled (pdf).
Poshpod, LLC, which specializes in Botox, fillers, and other aesthetic treatments, filed the dispute against the domain name poshpod.com. The firm uses the hyphenated version posh-pod.com.
The med spa wasn’t founded until 2024, and the registrant of the domain, an individual in China, purchased the domain in 2019. This means the domain could not have been registered in bad faith to target the Complainant.
Poshpod inquired regarding buying the domain name ahead of threatening to take legal action. In its UDRP filing, it falsely suggested that the Respondent initiated the discussions to sell the domain.
WIPO panelist Assen Alexiev found this was a case of reverse domain name hijacking for three reasons:
- Poshpod LLC tried to mislead the panel by suggesting it was the domain owner who initiated discussions to sell the domain.
- Complainant initiated purchase discussions, then filed for a trademark and waited for it to register ahead of sending a demand letter to Respondent shortly ahead of commencing the UDRP. Alexiev noted, “The Complainant must therefore have very well understood that it could not establish bad faith registration of the disputed domain name.”
- It was a classic “Plan B” case in which a party turns to UDRP following unsuccessfully trying to acquire a domain.
Both parties were internally represented.
