Jpedal.org earlier in 2016.
The former registrant of Jpedal.org filed a UDRP, hoping to get the domain back.
IDR Solutions Ltd. of East Peckham, UK, registered the domain Jpedal.org in 2002, and for 14 years used it providing computer software solutions.
Somehow, the domain’s registration lapsed this year, although the Complainant asserts it paid for its renewal, as usual.
According to the complaint:
“Although the evidence supports that Complainant paid its Registrar to timely renew the Domain Name registration in 2016, Complainant’s Registrar erroneously allowed the Domain Name to lapse. The date of the Domain Name re-registration was not confirmed by the Registrar. However, it is clear that the Domain Name was purchased upon lapse of the Domain Name by Respondent, and is currently being used by Respondent for what appears to be a website in French regarding Internet marketing, and technology. Respondent has only been identified as a “proxy service” and the underlying identity of Respondent has not been revealed.”
To summarize the Complaint, Complainant is the owner of unregistered rights for the trademark JPEDAL, in respect of software and has used the Domain Name for 14 years, prior to the erroneous lapse of the renewal by the Registrar.
The Respondent in this UDRP at the WIPO failed to respond.
The WIPO panelist, Ellen B. Shankman, stated the following:
“The Panel is persuaded that it cannot be mere coincidence that purchase of the Domain Name which has been used consistently for 14 years and suddenly available is not a deliberate purchase in which Respondent was unaware of Complainant and its use and mark. Further, although the first page of the website appears to use JP Edal as a name of the “blogger”, the obfuscation of Respondent’s identity under the Whois privacy proxy service, together with providing no information about Respondent on the Contact Us page of the website and the unidirectional collection of information, even though it appears to pose as a commercial site, are all indicia that generally cast doubt on Respondent’s bona fides and support a presumption of bad faith.
The Panel also finds relevant the relative weighing of the harms to the parties. Complainant being deprived of the Domain Name after 14 years of consecutive use whereby important trademark rights have accrued through no apparent error of its own suffers a much greater harm than Respondent (assuming for argument’s sake that he would be acting in a bona fide manner) being deprived of the Domain Name that appears to have been used for a matter of weeks.”
For those reasons, the domain Jpedal.org was ordered to be returned to the Complainant.
Click here to read the full UDRP decision.
