Reglikedomain industry desk

Name hijacking in Hakoba Saree case — Reverse domain

Name hijacking in Hakoba Saree case — Reverse domain

Both parties sell Sarees.

A single-member World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found a Mumbai firm guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domains Hakoba.com, hakobasaree.com, and hakobasarees.com.

Hakoba Lifestyle Limited filed the case against Mukesh Shah of Fresh York.

The Complainant owns hakoba.in and sells sarees (saris). The Respondent is also in the business of selling sarees, and registered Hakoba.com way back in 1998.

The panel found that the domain name was not registered and used in bad faith, which ought to have been pretty clear from the outset. If anything, this case is regarding trademarks, not cybersquatting.

Panelist Adam Taylor found this to be a case of reverse domain name hijacking. His rationale was fairly generic, but it seems quite clear that the respondent had a legitimate interest in the domain name and it wasn’t registered in bad faith.

Also on the wire

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