Is No Free Bird, Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking — Payment Processor
Panelist calls out firm for trying to breaking “spirit” of UDRP.
Tulsa, Oklahoma payment processor Blue Financial Corporation — which runs Bluefin Payment Systems — has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking by a WIPO UDRP panel.
This case was particularly egregious. Blue Financial has a trademark for “Freebird” for “Providing temporary use of on-line non-downloadable software for use in electronic authorization, processing and management of card present and card not present credit card, debit card, electronic check transactions and payments conducted via global computer networks.” It filed for the trademark in 2005 with a first use date in 2003.
The Freebird.com domain name was registered in 1997. The panel noted the impossibility of the domain name being registered with this later trademark in mind and found Blue Financial guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
A visit to the page shows that, if anything, it is targeting the most popular use of the term — the Free Bird song by Lynyrd Skynyrd.
There are other uses for the domain name, too. Here in Texas we have a burrito restaurant chain called FreeBirds. Writing this story made me hungry. I’ll be right back.
