The domain name QIQ.com was saved in a UDRP bought by QIQ Communications Pty Ltd of Terrigal, New South Wales, Australia who got a trademark on the term QIQ in 2012
The domain owner was Netico, Inc. of California registered the domain back on March 28, 1999.
The panel refused to find Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) although there does not seem to be any reason why RDNH was not found.
Here are the relevant parts of the one member panel of Gabriela Kennedy:
“The Panel accepts that the Complainant has rights in the QIQ mark, based on its trade mark registrations in Australia, the European Union and the United States of America.
The Panel notes that based on the evidence provided by the Complainant, its first registration of the QIQ mark was June 20, 2012 (i.e. the date it was actually entered on the register, with priority dating back to November 10, 2011); over a decade after the Disputed Domain Name was registered.
Whether the Complainant had rights in the trade mark at the time of registration of the Disputed Domain Name may be relevant to the consideration of bad faith under paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy, but it is not relevant for the purposes of determining whether the Disputed Domain Name is confusingly similar to a trade mark in which the Complainant has rights.
In the Response, the Respondent provides information on its general business, i.e. it develops online ventures and purchases domain names for this purpose.
The domain names that do not prove promising, or for which the Respondent is unable to obtain capital to fund the intended venture, are listed for sale and parked in the meantime.
However, the Respondent does not state that it is making (and has not provided any evidence of) preparations to use the Disputed Domain Name for any online venture.
It appears, based on the Complainant’s evidence, that the Disputed Domain Name is currently parked. This is consistent with the Respondent’s claim that it parks domain names and earns pay-per-click revenue in relation to them, if the intended venture related to the domain name will not come to fruition.
The use of a domain name containing a well-known trade mark for the purpose of collecting referral fees from sponsored advertising links, has been consistently held not to be a legitimate offering of goods or services (See PRL USA Holdings, Inc. v. LucasCobb, WIPO Case No. D2006-0162; and Entertainment Shopping AG v. Nischal Soni, Sonik Technologies, WIPO Case No. D2009-1437).
The Panel finds that the Respondent has failed to show that it has rights or legitimate interests in the Disputed Domain Name, and therefore the Complainant has satisfied paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy.
C. Registered and Used in Bad Faith
The Panel notes that the Complainant relies on its trade mark registrations for the QIQ mark in Australia, the European Union and the United States of America – the earliest of which completed its registration on June 20, 2012.
The Complainant makes no claims and provides no evidence of any common law or unregistered trade mark rights in the QIQ mark prior to the date of its trade mark registrations. As such, the Panel can only draw the reasonable conclusion that the Complainant does not have any such common law or unregistered rights in the QIQ mark, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.
As the Disputed Domain Name was registered on March 28, 1999, which was over a decade before the Complainant registered its QIQ trade mark, it is not possible for the Respondent to have been aware of the Complainant’s trade mark registration at the time of registering the Disputed Domain Name and therefore could not have registered it in bad faith with the Complainant in mind.
In this case, the Complainant makes general allegations in line with the non-exhaustive list of examples of bad faith, as specified under paragraph 4(b) of the Policy. However, the Complainant provides no evidence in support of its allegations. The Panel also notes that no evidence has been provided to show that the Respondent has been using the Complainant’s mark (other than in the Disputed Domain Name) to try and pass itself off as the Complainant, or that it knew of the Complainant prior to these proceedings.
The Panel therefore finds that the Complainant has failed to satisfy paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy.
D. Reverse Domain Name Hijacking
The Panel cannot conclude that the Complainant filed its Complaint in bad faith for the purposes of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, and mere lack of success of the Complaint is not in itself sufficient for a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
The Panel is of the opinion that the Complainant has not filed its Complaint in bad faith as an attempt at Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.”
