Avaya Inc. a company with 17,500 employees worldwide, was found Guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) in its attempted theft of the domain name Avayo.net
The panel took into account two other losing UDRP decisions filed by the company, in making its finding of (RDNH)after the company lost two other UDRP proceedings.
The story was first reported yesterday by onlinedomain.com, whose author represented the Domain Holder in the proceeding.
As to the issue of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking the three member panel said:
It is clear from the record that the Complainant knew that the Respondent is engaged in a legitimate business. When it filed the Complaint, the Complainant could plausibly have been unaware of the fact that the disputed domain name corresponds to the Respondent’s business name. However, the Complainant could not have ignored this after the Response was filed.”
“Not only did the Complainant fail to withdraw its Complaint when it was obvious that it could not succeed, it actually pressed its case by submitting Additional Submissions that did not address the pertinent facts, thus harassing the Respondent. Further, the Complainant merely asserts that the Respondent registered and used the disputed domain name in bad faith, without providing any evidence to support its assertions.”
“As the Respondent correctly notes, the Complainant should have known that it could never prove that Respondent was not commonly known by the disputed domain name, because it was well aware of the Respondent’s business activities. ”
“The Respondent also correctly notes that the Complainant in fact knew that Respondent had used the domain name in furtherance of a bona fide offering of goods and services. ”
“The Respondent correctly notes that the Complainant has previously filed domain name cases, and lost in two of such cases when it brought proceedings against legitimate businesses such as the Respondent. See Avaya Inc. v. Sudhir Sazena, FA 1229266 (Nat. Arb. Forum Dec. 9, 2008); and Avaya Inc. v. Moayyad Hamad, FA 1456063 (Nat. Arb. Forum Sept. 14, 2012). ”
“Consequently, the Panel finds that the Complaint was submitted in an attempt to hijack Respondent’s domain name/”
You can check out the OnlineDomain.com story for more details…
