Wholly Guacamole!

Maker of Wholly Guacamole goes following widow of domain registrant; loses.

I love Wholly Guacamole. It’s the only guacamole I buy; I just picked some up at the grocery store over the weekend.

Too bad it turns out some people at the firm are assholes.

I don’t think I’ve ever used that term on this site, but I think you’ll agree following reading the case the firm (Avomex, Inc) filed to try to get WhollyGuacamole.com. (It lost.)

The domain name was registered by Barry Pierce in 2004. He died in 2006. In 2007 Avomex started using the Wholly Guacamole brand in commerce.

Following trying to pressure Pierce’s widow and her son to accept an offer to buy the domain in a short time frame, Avomex filed a UDRP on the domain name.

You want to hear what Avomex’s first example of supposed bad faith is?

“First, that Respondent failed to properly update the registration WhoIs information following Barry Pierce’s death.”

Yeah, Mrs. Pierce. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for not updating the whois record on WhollyGuacamole.com as soon as your husband died. I’m sure it would have been top of mind.

Oh, it gets better:

Finally, citing Ticketmaster Corporation v. Global Access, WIPO Case No. D2007-1921 (February 13, 2008), Complainant alleges that when Barry Pierce died, Respondent effectively purchased the domain name “in 2007, following Complainant filed” its trademark application. Therefore, interpreting Ticketmaster, supra, Complainant alleges that Respondent failed in a duty to perform due diligence to ensure that the fresh domain name “acquisition” would not violate existing trademark rights.

So when your spouse dies then it’s a fresh registration. But you acted in bad faith by not updating the whois information right away. And you ought to have done a trademark search following your husband died to make sure his existing domain registration didn’t violate a newly filed trademark.

Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.

Anyone know of another good brand of guacamole?