President Cheese (owned by Lactalis Group, Lactalis Australia Pty Ltd) has been making dairy products in Australia for decades and have a trademark from the late-1970s in relation to the term “President” in Class 29 for “cheese”. According to Wayback Machine, they have been running their website, PresidentAustralia.com.au since 2012.
Meanwhile, a domain investor and development company has owned the generic one-word domain name, President.com.au since 2006.
Long story short, the Complainant (Lactalis Australia) filed an auDRP in what looks to be an attempt to effectively “steal” the domain name from the owners of President.com.au who owned it legitimately for 16 years, and, had owned it 6 years before the PresidentAustralia.com.au website was even launched.
In their complaint, the Complainants noted:
- The disputed domain name disrupts the Complainant’s business. The disputed domain name diverts Internet traffic to the Respondent.
- there is a high risk that the disputed domain name will be used as part of an email address for phishing and scams.
In my humble opinion, these complaints seem to be weak speculation at best and almost look like a waste of the Respondent’s and the WIPO Panelist’s time.
Meanwhile, the Respondent (the owners of President.com.au) seemed to “mess up” their response, with the Panel asking for more than one-page to be submitted as a Response? Although the Respondent never replied to this request, and only submitted one single page as a response, it appears the Complaint was so badly put together that the Complainants lost anyway!
Most notably, the Complainant failed to submit evidence to demonstrate the domain was registered in bad faith, and the Complainant did not provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name with the intent to resell it to the Complainant.
I believe the Sole Panelist John Swinson made the right decision here, denying President Cheese and Lactalis Australia from rugging the domain name from the rightful owner, who’d owned it for 16 years.
If you’re running a large company and you think you can bully domain investors or entrepreneurs into handing over valuable one-word domain names for free, this about says it all. The Respondent barely bothered to even respond and they STILL defended and got to keep their domain name!
If you want a valuable one-word domain name, you have to PAY FOR IT.
You can see this and other auDRP Decisions here.
OMG how much money did these clowns pay lawyers to file this complaint and which law firm thought it would be a good idea to take there money?
Good question!
Most notably, the Respondent only submitted a single page as defence and they STILL WON! They didn’t bother upgrading the Panel to Three Panelists… they didn’t bother hiring lawyers or help, just a single page (albeit an accident, by the looks of it).
The Complainant would have spent thousands, possibly tens of thousands of dollars, TO LOSE.
This means, as always, if you want a valuable generic one-word domain name, YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR IT.
How long is it going to take for this to sink in?
Also should have been RDNH. Clear Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
Respondents do not have to file against clear RDNH and generic words.
Panelists need to realise it’s just a waste of time, money and resources and knock these out sternly calling out the RDNH Complainants and their RDNH Lawyers abuse of process.
Name and Shame them.
RDNH.COM
HallOfShame.com