Complainant makes arguments in its case that seem to be in defense of the domain name owner.
A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has found (pdf) Top Systems Brasil Software Financeiro Ltda. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking over the domain name topaz.com.
The financial technology company made rather bizarre arguments in the case it filed against topaz.com owner Reflex Publishing.
For example, it pointed to previous UDRP cases in which Reflex was involved as evidence that the domain was registered in bad faith. But Reflex won the cases it referred to.
In Reflex’s response, attorney John Berryhill noted, “This is like finding someone who has been robbed several times and calling them a thief because of ‘their involvement in multiple crimes’.”
The Complainant also cited “a conversation on a social media platform criticizing the Respondent and reporting difficulties in acquiring a generic domain name from the Respondent” as a rationale for filing its case. In other words, some other company coveted one of Reflex’s generic domain names and was upset it couldn’t acquire it.
The three-person WIPO panel found against the Complainant on the issues of rights or legitimate interests and registration and use in bad faith. In finding reverse domain name hijacking, it wrote:
In the present matter, the Complainant itself lists very similar UDRP disputes, involving the Respondent and dictionary term domain names used in relation to their dictionary meaning, decided in the favour of the Respondent, but, for reasons that this Panel does not understand, concludes that such history of the Respondent demonstrates a pattern of bad faith conduct, “suggesting a recurring behaviour of registering generic domain names in bad faith and preventing their use by trademark owners”.
Source: https://domainnamewire.com/
