Panel admonishes insurance technology company for its attempt to get integrity.com through a UDRP.
Insurance technology company Integrity Marketing Group, LLC has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. The company tried to obtain the valuable domain name integrity.com through a UDRP filing after repeatedly failing to acquire the domain name.
The domain name is currently used by LRN Corporation, which provides an ethics and compliance management platform. It forwards integrity.com to its website lrn.com.
Integrity Marketing Group registered a trademark for ‘integrity’ in February of this year, and claimed it had been using the mark in commerce since at least 2016. However, it didn’t provide adequate proof of common law rights predating the registration.
The company said it tried to entered into “good faith negotiations” for the domain name six times since 2001.
It’s unclear when the current owner acquired the domain, which was registered in 1996. It’s possible that it acquired the domain in 2020. This was still before the Complainant’s proven trademark rights.
And even if the LRN acquired the domain yesterday, it would be nearly impossible for the Complainant to win a case for a popular dictionary term that is used by many companies and has many possible uses.
The three person National Arbitration Forum panel determined that this case was brought in bad faith as an abuse of UDRP.
King & Spalding LLP represented Integrity Marketing Group and the Law Office of Jason Zedeck represented the domain name owner.
Post link: No integrity: integrity.com cybersquatting dispute is reverse domain name hijacking
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