George Kirikos company, Leap Of Faith Financial Services, (Leap) just won a declaratory judgement that is was the lawful owner of the domain name Pupa.com and was awarded its court costs, all arising out of a UDRP filed last year by the Italian cosmetics company Micys. (not Macys).
In June of last year we told you that a UDRP was filed on the domain name Pupa.com, owned by frequent commentator to TheDomains.com, George Kirikos company Leap.
George filed a lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
The WIPO, UDRP panel terminated the UDRP, without a written decision based on the pending court action in August of last year.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the domain name Pupa.com was lawfully owned by Leap, that the defendant has no rights to the domain name pupa.com.
The defendant was ordered to pay Leap fees of over $4,500.arising out of the court action but not the UDRP defense.
Leap was represented in the UDRP by Zak Muscovitch and was represented in the court action by Andrew Bernstein and Sarah Whitmore of Torys LLP
George –
If I read correctly the UDRP Panel only opted out of judgment AFTER the civil action was filed.
So the fact that a non-legal action – a UDRP was just filed is enough grounds for a declaratory judgment for a civil court ?
Brian: Sure, because once the UDRP was filed, the domain name was locked by the registrar, pending final resolution of the dispute. Had the court not made a declaratory judgment, the name would be in a state of limbo, and my company’s ability to fully utilize it (e.g. renew, change nameservers, etc.) would be affected.
Brian
I have seen cases bought into federal court based off a C&D letter without the domain holder waiting for the UDRP to be filed
Congratulations, George!
Thanks, Zak. Zak wrote a superlative UDRP response, and helped advise the rest of the “dream team” of legal eagles. 🙂
GK: congrats!