The extremely generic domain name Fiesta.com has been hit with a UDRP filing.
The complainant is Dean & Simmons, Sàrl Heintz Van Landewyck S.à.r.l. which as the best as I can tell has a pending but not yet registered trademark on the term and is actually facing abandonment by April 2015.
Del Monte foods also has a recently filed trademark on the term Fiesta going all the way back to May 14th 2014.
As for the domain name it’s registered under privacy at Moniker but was owned prior to that by DomainCapital.com
The domain seems to have been parked forever and is currently at InternetTraffic.com
Interestedly the for sales link on the top of the page says the “domain may be available for sale by the Sync Foundation”
Not sure what the Sync Foundation is but the domain has an original registration date of May 15, 1995 slightly before the pending “trademark” application of the world famous, Dean & Simmons, Sàrl Heintz Van Landewyck S.à.r.l. which appears to be a holding company out of Luxembourg that is in the tobacco business.
What relationship the word, Fiesta has to the cancer causing tobacco is anyone guess.
My mother died from lung cancer after being a lifetime smoker so for those in the tobacco industry especially those trying to steal a 20 year old domain based off a TM filed but not even granted, your are not amongst my favorite people in the world.
I see that you have included a link to Trademarks411.com. In what way Is it better than Uspto.gov?
When I see fiesta, I think of an amusement park and a grocery store chain in Texas.
I think of Chimichanag’s nd Marghairitas !
Simply a case of reverse hijacking. If they don’t see right through this I’ll be very surprised but then again you never know-that’s probably why their taking a shot. My guess would be they will say that the domain holder has been holding in bad faith-not using for any real commercial use and also had plenty of time to trademark the word or domain.
I once had someone register a shell company using a domain name as the company name which was not allowed as they were required to add a little extra to the name which they did so. They then waited till the domain was registered and then a year later attempted to extort money claiming that I would need to pay an annual fee to continue using the domain.
I sent them a color coded response explaining the legal situation regarding business names, trademarks etc with links to the various pages concerning each. of what they were doing as well as their legal standing on the matter…
Never did get a response from them after that.
People try all sorts of things if they think they can get away with it.
They apparently have launched an e-cigarette by that name.
As is typical of these arrogant and stupid trademark claimants, egged on by their equally arrogant and stupid trademark lawyers, they think that their recent activities entitle them to a domain name which has been held for years by someone else.
Let get together and get these UDRP rules updated and get some protection on RDNH. Not sure if this will be the case but since there is no penalty for a RDNH, there is no risk.. So again in this case, what do they have to lose? NOTHING but maybe the seller telling them to F off after they lose.. I would take it right to federal court as Cohen did and bypass this organization.. Lets flood the courts with shitty cases, the exact reason ICANN created this policy with no real enforceable rules. So much for case law that was established over the early years of ICANN.. I am all for getting a major list of supporters to ping the rogue companies and panelist making bad decisions.. 5,000 emails flooded to these people might have some impact. But then again, its only going to get worse and we as any industry, need to act as a group to make change. This is a major investment liability that continues and wont change for at least another year, we need to act now.. Losing a premium digital asset, owned before a trademark application and 20 years ago is theft. Ping me if interested in discussing.. chad
Fiesta is such a generic Spanish word that I don’t see a way the claimant can win the case, but I see why they think they should own it., growing up in Mexico in the 1960’s the most popular cigarette brand was Fiesta cigarettes, it was like Marlboro in the USA, I imagine they still exist.