TM existence does not allocate domains by default.
The registrant of the almost 20 year old domain, SilverStreak.com, has one person to thank: the National Arbitration Forum panelist that ruled the UDRP in his favor.
SilverStreak.com was registered in August of 1996 and never changed hands, according to DomainTools.
Despite the generic nature of the terms, Silver Streak Industries, LLC felt entitled to the domain. They applied for the SILVER STREAK trademark and their application is currently pending.
The domain’s owner redirects it to OregonProducts.com and did not respond to the UDRP. That, in itself, can be problematic.
Debrett G. Lyons, sole panelist, did extensive research on the Respondent’s identity, and pointed out the following:
The Complaint proceeds on the basis that Respondent targeted Complainant’s trademark. Panel observes that the domain name was registered three years before Complainant was incorporated. Mr Mallon’s declaration would suggest that between 1978 and 1999 the trademark was used by a family business. That business would seem on the evidence to be located only in Temple, Arizona. Its website at www.silverstreaks.com might have wider reach but Panel’s reference to the Wayback Machine indicates no activity at that website until September 2001, well after the registration date of the disputed domain name.
Further, even cursory research of Respondent’s identity undertaken by Panel reveals that Dan Vietze has been employed as an IT Manager at Blount Industries, Inc., Kansas City from June 1992 to present time. Furthermore, it is public information that in 1997 Blount purchased Frederick Manufacturing Corp. of Kansas City, Missouri and in 2002 Blount’s corporate headquarters moved to Portland, Oregon.
Blount is the WHOIS listed “organization” for the domain name and the administrative contact is a “Susan Williams” of Blount Inc. Dan Vietze’s WHOIS listed email is dan.vietze@oregonep.com. The website resolving from the disputed domain name, www.oregonproducts.com, promotes, as already mentioned, OREGON branded chainsaws, goods which are made by Blount which is, as noted, now headquartered in Oregon.
None of this of course answers the question of Respondent’s intention for the domain name. However, given the generic character of the words SILVER STREAK (noted earlier) and Respondent’s apparent ongoing employment as an IT manager (persons commonly charged in an organization with the task of registering and maintaining domain names and not uncommonly doing so in their own names) for Frederick Manufacturing and now Blount, Panel finds it more likely than not that, at the time Respondent registered the disputed domain name, it had no knowledge of Complainant or of its trademark, and registered the name for a purpose in no way linked with Complainant.
With all that in mind, the transfer of the domain to the Complainant was denied.
For the full text of this UDRP decision for the domain name SilverStreak.com, click here.
