TruTag Technologies thinking in this UDRP? — What was

Firm goes following domain names registered many years ahead of it started using the trademark in question.

I just don’t get it.

TruTag Technologies, Inc. just wasted money filing a UDRP against the domain names trutag.com, truetag.net, and truetag.org.

The firm sells microtags for authentication and anti-counterfeiting. It uses the domain name TruTags.com, which it probably chose since TruTag.com had by now been registered for a number of years when it started its business.

As stated by the firm’s trademark filing, its first use in commerce for the term “TruTag” was in 2012. Its first use anywhere was in 2009.

Strategic Solutions International registered the domains in 2006 for its own product offerings. It has a product called TrueTag, and registered the misspelled version to protect its brand.

Yet TruTag Technologies still decided to file a UDRP against Strategic Solutions, even though the latter couldn’t have registered the domain names in bad faith. Strategic Solutions called TruTag Technologies out on this in its response:

Complainant could have confirmed the fact that Respondent had rights by conducting a simply search of the term “truetag” in connection with the term “strategic-solutions” and found that Respondent had been using the marks since 2006. Given Complainant’s extensive usage of the WHOIS databases to find information, it is likely that Complainant did in fact know these details regarding Respondent yet filed this Complaint anyway.

Panelist Karl V. Fink obviously found in the respondent’s favor. Fink didn’t find TruTag guilty of reverse domain name hijacking, and he didn’t really give a reason.

Regardless, this was a dead-on-arrival UDRP. The complainant either didn’t do its research or, worse, did so and filed the complaint anyway.