iCloak.com : 16 year old domain saved from over-reaching UDRP challenge

Trademark domains aren't to play with.

Owners of registered trademarks don’t always win the matching .com domain.

Companies and start-ups eager to invent new brands, are essentially hitting a wall these days.

In the case of Icloak, Inc., a company incorporated in 2014 in Florida, they went ahead and registered the trademark ICLOAK for the following services:

“Computer software for protecting anonymity and privacy while browsing the Internet and while connecting remotely to another computer through a virtual private network, and for protecting anonymity and privacy of a computer owner during an unauthorized access to that computer.”

The domain icloak.com was registered in September of 1999, however, as DomainTools shows, and it has been parked to display PPC ads related to security, software and Internet access related services.

Icloak, Inc. made an offer for the domain that wasn’t responded to. After all, offering $750 dollars for a generic, aged .com domain is better not responded to, although an 100x counter-offer would have been appropriate, in our opinion.

Icloak, Inc. went ahead and filed a UDRP at the WIPO.

Despite a lack of response by the Registrant of icloak.com, the sole panelist, Nicholas Smith, stated that there was no finding of bad faith by the Respondent, simply because the domain icloak.com was registered a good 15 years before the Complainant formed their company.

“The Domain Name was registered in September 1999. The entity that owns the ICLOAK Mark was incorporated in November 2014 and claims to have first started using the ICLOAK Mark in January 2014. ICLOAK Inc, or a predecessor in title applied to register the ICLOAK Mark in March 2014. Even taking the Complainant’s evidence at its highest, there is no possibility that the Respondent, when it registered the Domain Name in 1999, could have been aware of the Complainant or its rights in the ICLOAK Mark: The ICLOAK Mark simply did not exist. For this reason, the Domain Name was not registered in bad faith.”

Naturally, Mr. Smith ordered icloak.com to remain with its owner. For the full text of the UDRP, click here.

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