Panel finds WindSpace A/S tried reverse domain name hijacking over windspace.com
in plain words
A company tried to take a website name from its owner through a special dispute process. The panel said the company should have known it could not prove the owner acted in bad faith, so it was found to have misused the process. The panel gave a reverse domain name hijacking finding, which is a formal criticism.
Full summary
A WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization The United Nations agency whose center handles many domain name disputes. Full definition of WIPO panel The one or three independent experts who decide a domain dispute. Full definition of panel has found that WindSpace A/S, a Danish green energy company, engaged in reverse domain name A readable internet name made of labels separated by dots. Full definition of domain name hijacking. The company had filed a complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy against the domain windspace.com. The panel's finding means the complaint was brought in a way the panel considered improper.
The domain was registered in 1999, well before WindSpace A/S was founded. Over the years it changed hands several times, passing to a series of green energy companies through acquisitions. In 2009 the company asked about buying the domain, but the holder, who was using it at the time, turned the offer down. WindSpace A/S made two more purchase attempts, in 2014 and 2022, and both were refused.
Panelist Sebastian Hughes found that the company had not shown that the domain holder lacked rights or legitimate interests In the UDRP, a valid reason for a holder to have the disputed domain. Full definition of rights or legitimate interests in the name. He also found it had not shown that the domain was registered and used in bad faith Intent to take unfair advantage of another's trademark through a domain name. Full definition of bad faith. In his view, the company should have known it could not establish bad faith, because the domain predates its business and its Danish trademark rights by many years.
The panel also noted that the company knew in 2009 that the holder was using the domain for an independent renewable energy business in Spain. It added that the holder's repeated refusals over 13 years made a bad faith finding unlikely. Given the meaning of the term WINDSPACE in the renewable energy sector, the panel said the company could not prove bad faith through passive holding Holding a domain without using it, which UDRP panels can still treat as bad faith. Full definition of passive holding either.
DLA Piper’s Denmark office represented WindSpace A/S in the case.