Owner of WordPress Hit With UDRP On The Domain Name Thesis.com

by

The owner of WordPress.com, Automattic, Inc, has been hit with a UDRP on the domain name Thesis.com which they seemed to have acquired in September  2014.

The domain name is registered through Mark Monitor.

The domain was owned by Facultylounge.com Partners until it was purchased by

The domain name Thesis.com is being forward to Themeshaper.com which is of course also owned by Automattic, Inc

A quick search of the USPTO found 7 live trademarks for Thesis, including one filed in February of 2015 by a THESIS COUTURE, INC, another filed in 2013 by Happy Green Company LLC and another filed in 2011 by E. Mishan & Sons, Inc.

Thesis is of course a dictionary word and appears in my opinion to be another attempt to grab a valuable domain from its lawful owner without compensation

Lets hope we see a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking decision on this one.

 

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  2. Michael Berkens says

    Dayne

    As I said the Complainant is not yet listed which happens more than 50% of the time when a UDRP is filed

    We will have to wait and see

    If I had to bet, I would pick the one with the most recent TM

  3. Joseph Peterson says

    If anything will give impetus to the call to penalize RDNH, this sort of UDRP should. By all means, let the thieves go after big targets with extensive connections!

    So long as the domain owner is an unknown little guy, it’s easy for the public to presume he’s a cybersquatter. That anti-registrant stigma allows UDRPs to filed with impunity. But in this case, WordPress enjoys plenty of public good will; and they’re not without resources & allies.

    So the public may now well ask, if WordPress can be victimized by the UDRP process, perhaps that process is broken. Perhaps merely coveting a domain isn’t adequate justification for demanding it by force.

  4. Logan says

    I suppose if WordPress registered the domain name in September 2014 and that date was after the date of the filing of a registered trademark in THESIS, the complainant might have a partial case. But, they’d have to also prove that WordPress maliciously targeted their trademark with that registration and they’d have to demonstrate that WordPress has no legitimate interest in the domain name to begin with, despite WordPress having a product called Thesis. That’s a much taller order. I suspect the complainant may escape the RDNH ruling based on the panelists having some sympathy with its partial case.

  5. Acro says

    Greece should be getting royalties from all these trademarks of purely Greek words: Nike, Thesis, Oikos etc. Mr. Portokalos was right.

    • Joseph Peterson says

      Had Socrates only patented the act of asking questions, he could have left his heirs one killer IP portfolio! … instead of only the debt of a rooster.