The car maker Jaguar/Land Rover Has been found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) on the domain name MountainRovers.com.
The domain name was owned and used by the domain holder since 1998.
The domain name holder did not file a response to the UDRP
Not only did the one person National Arbitration Forum panel find that Land Rover guilty of RDNH it found that claim was barred by the legal doctrine of Laches.
The one man panel said:
“Complainant was a little too glib in its submission of the WHOIS information to this Panel. Complainant somehow forgot to include the registered owner’s name in the WHOIS material, although that is very easy for the Panel to determine…by looking at the top the Complaint. Mountain Rovers, Inc. registered the disputed domain name and Respondent is clearly commonly known by that name. Complainant has failed to prove its case under Policy ¶4(c)(ii).
It should be noted Respondent has been actually using this disputed domain since February 12, 1998, all without objection until March 16, 2012. Certainly Complaint is guilty of latches by allowing Respondent to use the disputed domain without objection for 5,146 days. All during that time, Respondent was acquiring rights to the disputed domain name. This Panel has held rights can be fairly quickly obtained by bona fide use (Policy ¶4(c)(i)):
Complainant certainly knew all of this when it filed this Complaint, which was clearly unfounded from the moment it was filed. How could Complainant possibly think it could prevail on the issue of whether or not Respondent had rights to the domain when Respondent is actually known by the domain name? It couldn’t. While others might argue this Panel’s rulings on other points could not be anticipated, any Panel worth its salt would have found Respondent had rights under Policy ¶4(c)(ii). Complainant has engaged in a clear case of reverse domain name hijacking.”
$600-$800 a month in repair bills to maintain my chunk of shit landrover
@Brian
I had a Triumph Spitfire, that was only a few years old while I was in college… great fun car with the top down, but having to bring it in to the shop every single month forced me and my college budget to part with it eventually… so I know exactly what you mean.
Thankfully Japan brought out the Miata / MX-5 (initially inspired by the Triumph Spitfire) that still gives that same small British sports car feel, but you can count on it lasting a long time without ever having a problem.
Too bad for Triumph, I loved that Spitfire…
Make my day!!!
Its sad to see what was once a great company in the hole saying pass me another shovel. Idiots.
@Brian
I have two and they are both money pits. The company is worse since Tata Motors bought Land Rover.
There are thousands of people that use the Rover name in their domain and will never have an issue. I think this comes down to Mountain Rovers using the Land Rover logo on their site for the past 10 years and they probably didn’t respond to any of the C and D letters from Land Rover so Land Rover tried to take the domain to end the issue. I have been on many Rover sites over the years and not one will ever put the logo on their site because they know the ramifications of it. Porsche, Ferrari, etc…are sticklers for this also.
wait! a one member panel making another good decision, with NO reply from the respondent, and finding a RDNH and recognizing the doctrine of latches! can’t be real 🙂
Good decision ! What exec is responsible for this ?
@GenericGene @jose
Since our industry leaders, and bloggers (especially Schwartz) started paying attention, and actually documenting this, the fortune of Respondents have changed changed dramatically.
Sunlight is a great disinfectant.
By simply shinning some light on the panelists, they have started doing the right thing.
There is much more to this story. Shining a light on UDRPs that are actually done in bad faith is good but Land Rover is not doing this in bad faith and I don’t think anyone including Schwartz should point fingers until they know the whole truth. Here is Land Rovers history when it comes to UDRPs and its short. (link below) Most of the names on this list have the name Land Rover in the domain name and not just the word Rover or Rovers. There are literally thousands of domains with Rover or Land Rover in the domain name and Land Rover is not going after those. So it makes you wonder what the truth is behind this UDRP. Personally like I said before it is against trademark law to use the Land Rover logo on your site and this company has been doing it for more than 10 years when you look back at the screenshots. It is possible that they tried again and again to get these people to stop using their logo and made a bad decision to do a UDRP to stop use of their mark. Lets be realistic how can a company that restores old land rovers in the middle of Montana do anything that would justify a UDRP.
http://www.udrpsearch.com/search?query=rover&search=domain
Yes Domenclature –
This is a real beauty for Rick’s “Wall of Shame”
– as Rick said earlier – this made his day (for all of us) – because this ain’t no small to medium size business – these guys are real big business – a beauty to reference in anybody’s next Response to a UDRP Complaint coming from a fortune 1000 company.
Todd
It was the UDRP panel that determined the case was brought without any merit.
How are you turning this on Mr. Schwartz?
Did you read the words from the decision?:
“”Complainant certainly knew all of this when it filed this Complaint, which was clearly unfounded from the moment it was filed.
“How could Complainant possibly think it could prevail on the issue of whether or not Respondent had rights to the domain when Respondent is actually known by the domain name?
It couldn’t.
“While others might argue this Panel’s rulings on other points could not be anticipated, any Panel worth its salt would have found Respondent had rights under Policy ¶4(c)(ii). ”
“Complainant has engaged in a clear case of reverse domain name hijacking.”
@ Grim,
Triumph Spitfires were made by Triumph Motor Co initially and the company was taken over by British Leyland.
The Mazda MX5 was based on the Lotus Elan from the 1960’s, not the Spitfire.
Sorry to have to correct you.
The only reason I mentioned Schwartz was because of what Domenclature said
“Since our industry leaders, and bloggers (especially Schwartz) started paying attention, and actually documenting this, the fortune of Respondents have changed changed dramatically.
Sunlight is a great disinfectant.
By simply shinning some light on the panelists, they have started doing the right thing.”
and what Schwartz said on his own blog
“When will these CHEAP BASTARDS ever learn? I can also call them would be THIEVES which is a LOT worse. I’ll let everyone else play nice. I will keep calling them out until this stops. Sorry to the politically correct. You don’t play nice with people who abuse the process and try to STEAL! You stick it up their asses, never let them forget and let it serve as a lesson to the next PREDATOR.”
and this
“But this is a really GREAT case because there was no response by the domain owner and the panel still found them guilty of RDNH. Another company run by CHEAP BASTARDS that has TARNISHED a brand forever! I am sure these idiots will be pissed at me, but they should be pissed at whoever internally signed off on this RISK to a BRAND. If they worked for me, they would not see lunchtime. So let their anger flow!”
I am all for listing UDRPs that are done in bad faith and used to steal domains and such but this is clearly not the case. They did not do a UDRP to try and steal this domain they did a UDRP to get this company to stop using their mark. The bottom line is I don’t think its right to bash a company when all they were doing was defending their mark. I think the term RDNH should be reserved for people that are actually trying to steal domains for their own advantage and in my opinion this is clearly not the case. Land Rover wanted them to stop using their mark and they thought a UDRP was the easiest way to do it but like I said I am all for calling out bad companies when its justified.
Course we dunno what happend before.
But showing landrover logos on your website without consent is not a smart thing.
Thats like listing my domain names and put up a logo of thedomains.com or have the blessing from the domain king himself putting up Rick’s pictures.
Perhaps the UDRP was too heavy, perhaps they saw no other option to take down the landrover logos.
Just playing the devils advocate here.
maybe they tried to take (steal) a domain (property) they had no rights to.
This is what i’ve been saying for quite some time. If they have IP and commercial misleading problems with their logo on a website, there must be legal ways to actually frame website owners. But this is a case of property, not IP. Maybe a lawyer might give better explanations, but we all need a domain law that separates content from urls, instead of rules that mix all up and have no real judges.
What i am trying to say is that they might have a court order to take out the logo, but they shouldn’t be able to steal property because of that.
On a positive note, this decision seems like a Dali painting. Kudos for the panelist.
I guess Land Rover never read Rick’s RDNH wall of shame.
Now they are a lifetime member.
Like Rick says, do you part to get the word out about these thieves so future Land Rovers of the world don’t misuse the WIPO system.
Yes Rob – Literally
“Land Rovers” of the world don’t misuse the WIPO system
David wrote:
> @ Grim,
> The Mazda MX5 was based on the Lotus Elan from the
> 1960′s, not the Spitfire.
> Sorry to have to correct you.
My fault for inferring that it was _just_ the Spitfire… before making the Miata, they of course studied many other classic roadsters like the Elan, Austin-Healey and MGB. They did have a Spitfire hanging around in the factory while building the first Miatas, and I heard they tuned the note of the Miata’s exhaust to be as close to it as possible. I still have an immaculate ’89 Miata in my garage, and anyway, that was what I was told when I bought it, new. If I still had my Spitfire, I could test the exhaust note claim… but unfortunately, college trumped the monthly repair bills for it. 🙁