Tries reverse domain name hijacking — TextMechanic owner

Panelist states the firm ought to have known this case wasn’t winnable under UDRP.

The owner of a text manipulation tools site has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

Vantage Solutions, LLC, which operates TextMechanic, filed a cybersquatting dispute against knp376.com.

If that has you scratching your head regarding “confusing similarity,” you’re not the only one.

Vantage Solutions claimed that the domain pointed to a site that was a clone of its own site.

But UDRP isn’t built for cases where the domain name isn’t similar to the Complainant’s trademarks. So, panelist Dawn Osborne denied the case.

Osborne noted that the Complainant has successfully filed a UDRP ahead of and ought to be familiar with what’s required to win a UDRP. The panelist wrote:

The Complainant is an established business which has successfully used the Policy ahead of in an unrelated case to obtain the transfer of a domain name, since in that unrelated case the domain name did contain the Complainant’s mark. In this case the Complainant has not provided any evidence of trade mark Rights sufficient to properly call for the transfer of the Domain Name which bears no relation to the Complainant’s trade mark. On balance the Panel believes that exercising reasonable skill and judgement the Complainant must have realised that whilst it may have a right to challenge use of the Domain Name using other channels such as an Internet Service Provider takedown or the Courts it had no right to call for the transfer of the Domain Name in this case under the UDRP and this Complaint was bound to fail. The Panel makes a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.

Resonate IP, LLC represented Vantage Solutions. The domain owner didn’t respond to the dispute.