Case Number: D2020-0948
Complainant: Structure Cellars, LLC
Represented by: Self / Brian Grasso
The owner of a Seattle-based winery and tasting room has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking in its attempt to grab the domain houseofpagne.com from a former business associate. Structure Cellars, LLC had filed its complaint, without the aid of counsel, on April 16, 2020, against private owner, Carolyn Holt, who described herself as a former business partner of the winery owner, Brian Grasso.
For his part, Mr. Grasso said Ms. Holt was a former employee who registered the domain in her own name, but failed to turn control of the domain over to the company when she left. Mr. Grasso cited two pending trademark applications as evidence Ms. Holt registered the domain, but the WIPO panelist noted the domain registration was in May of 2019, while the trademark applications, which had still not been published for opposition, were not filed until the following September and October.
Ms. Holt said the domain was acquired, and she then approached Mr. Grasso about a business plan to open a hip-hop styled champagne bar, calling it House of Pagne. She said the domain belonged to her, since Mr. Grasso backed out of the business deal, but that it was hers to use as she saw fit to further her own business interests.
The sole panelist, W. Scott Blackmer, agreed, stating it appeared obvious there was a business dispute between the two parties. While the respondent did not seek a ruling of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, Mr. Blackmer issued such a finding, nonetheless.
“Here, the Complaint is patently deficient,” Mr. Blackmer wrote in his RDNH finding. “The Complaint does not address the obvious problem that the Complainant’s business was launched months after the Respondent registered the Domain Name.”
Mr. Blackmer further addressed the apparent business dispute, itself, writing that the complainant should not have sought a legal remedy in an administrative proceeding designed to address the very specific issues of trademark rights, “when it was not prepared to prove that it has such rights and that the Respondent registered and used the Domain Name in contemplation of the Complainant’s trademark rights.”
The RDNH ruling was handed up May 15, 2020.
Added October 5, 2020.
Source: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2020-0948