Thread: Indian company loses .mobi domain

I just read about an India-based company that lost a WIPO arbitration case involving the domain CompareTheMarket.mobi.

The complainant is the owner of a UK trademark for CompareTheMarket.com, and various design marks for CompareTheMarket. The complainant offers an insurance price comparison service (and other financial services) on the .com domain.

The respondent did not file a response to the complaint. The disputed .mobi domain did not resolve to a website.

The panel concluded that the respondent's registration and passive holding of the domain, in this particular case, amounted to bad faith. The circumstances which led to the panel's conclusion are:

(1) the complainant provided evidence that its trademark is widely known and marketed in the UK;

(2) the respondent registered the disputed .mobi domain years after the complainant's first trademark registration;

(3) the respondent provided no evidence that it had any rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name;

(4) the respondent did not reply to the complainant's allegations; and

(5) the respondent had hidden its identity behind a proxy agent.

You can read the decision on the WIPO website.

Taking into account that the respondent did not defend or give any explanations, and had hidden its identity, I'm not all that surprised the panel ordered the transfer of the domain to the complainant.

What do others think of the decision?

The owner made no attempt to defend that will be the main contributing factor, even a simple mini site relating to other products would likely have altered the decision .