According to the case decision, the Complainant previously owned the domain at issue.
A UDRP panel has found reverse domain name hijacking in a dispute over meditechpharmaceutical .com.
It’s a somewhat confusing case. It seems that the Complainant, Laura Grunwald, once owned the domain name at issue. The Respondent, Abhijeet Singh / Meditech Human Pharmaceutical, claimed that it made a copyright complaint in 2013 that resulted in the domain becoming available, at which point the Respondent acquired the domain. The Complainant then registered the matching .net.
The panel only decided on the issue of the domain being confusingly similar to a mark in which the Complainant has rights. It determined that the Complainant did not show it had common law rights in Meditech.
In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the panel wrote:
Respondent alleges that Complainant has acted in bad faith and is engaging in reverse domain name hijacking by initiating this dispute. Respondent contends that Complainant is attempting to deprive Respondent, the rightful, registered holder of the <meditechpharmaceutical.com> domain name, of its rights to use the disputed domain name. Respondent alleges that Complainant knew of Respondent’s existence in 2015 when it had registered the MEDITECH mark as evidenced by its message dated November 25, 2015. The Panel finds that Complainant knew that the evidence produced does not establish that the Complainant has any relevant trademark rights. The Panel finds there is sufficient evidence to support the averments of the Respondent, the Panel therefore finds that reverse domain name hijacking has occurred.
No counsel is listed for the parties.
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