Company filed cybersquatting complaint against domain registered well before it existed.
Oniric Studio SRL has been found to have tried reverse hijacking the domain name oniric.com.
The video game maker was incorporated in 2020 and registered a figurative trademark for oniric in 2021.
However, the current registrant of oniric.com, Stanley Pace, registered the domain name in 2012. Therefore, he couldn’t have registered the domain name to target the then-non-existent Complainant.
Czech Arbitration Court panelist Fabrizio Bedarida ruled that the case was filed in bad faith as attempted reverse domain name hijacking:
There is a complete absence of evidence or any facts from which an inference could reasonably be drawn that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name to tarnish the ONIRIC trademark of the Complainant, to prevent the Complainant from reflecting its ONIRIC trademark in a corresponding domain name, or for any other improper reason. No inference could be drawn that the Respondent was targeting the Complainant or was minded to do so when it registered the disputed domain name.
This is due to the fact that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name some eight years before the Complainant was incorporated and/or acquired trademark rights to the ONIRIC name, making it impossible for the Respondent to have known of the Complainant or to have been motivated by bad faith towards an as-yet non-existent company when it registered the disputed domain name.
Mr Pierre-Yves Thoumsin represented the Complainant, and John Berryhill represented the domain registrant.
This post has been updated to reflect the correct name of the panelist.
Source: https://domainnamewire.com/
