Here’s a case you don’t see everyday.
Bebidas Fruki S.A. of Lajeado, Brazil, won a second UDRP on the domain name Fruki.com after failing to renew its domain back in 2013.
The domain was originally registered on January 2002.
In 2011 the domain name was transferred to the Complainant under UDRP case Bebidas Fruki S.A. v. NitroTrade LLC, WIPO Case No. D2011-0913.
However in 2013 the company failed to renew the domain when it was registered at Godaddy.
It took the company over two years to send a cease-and-desist letter to the domain holder and then filed this second UDRP to get the domain name back.
Unfortunately the domain holder did not respond to the UDRP and lost the domain.
“The website to which the disputed domain currently relates to indicates “FRUKI.com is for sale. Click to make an offer”.
In view of the foregoing, including that the Respondent failed to respond to the Complainant’s cease-and-desist letter in which Complainant requested the transfer of the disputed domain name, and the Respondent’s failure to answer the Complaint and provide a plausible explanation as to why it chose to make the trademark FRUKI the central word in the disputed domain name, the Panel finds that the Respondent registered and is using the disputed domain name to take unfair advantage of the Complainant’s trademark FRUKI, for commercial gain, which is tantamount to bad faith.
this is so beautiful. why should anything make sense?
Trademark precedes ownership of the domain, no response from the domain owner, and a for sale sign on the landing page with no other use or attempt to avoid confusion in sight. Pretty easy decision for the panelist.
Certainly a very expensive practice by the trademark holder
I think the 2-years silent period is related to the fact that they struggled to re-obtain a
certification ( health ) on some of their products. As far as trademark goes, their trademark on one specific product is being contested ( Fruk! Vs. Antartica, ref Guaraná ).
They are a bit famous in southern Brazil; as for the renewal fiasco and subsequent barrister’s fees, I’d attribute to the fact that virtually no one speaks English in that specific region.
But I’m a bit confused now, does that mean a drop and catch is being assessed as a new registration ? for example, if coca-cola drops their dot com by mistake and someone else catches it, would
that mean coca-cola needs to go through the udrp process again ( even if they have a udrp grant/decision on the domain name ) ?