A UDRP was filed against the Mamar.com domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). According to a couple of Spanish to English dictionaries I checked, the word mamar means “to suckle” – as in breastfeed. The UDRP is WIPO Case D2019-1210. The UDRP was filed by an entity called Mamar Group LTD.
Although the Whois record is currently redacted due to GDPR, it has been owned by the late Igal Lichtman’s company, Mrs. Jello, LLC for quite some time. Based on the ParkingSpa.com nameservers that have been used for many years, along with the fact that the domain name has been registered at Moniker for many years, I have no reason to believe the domain name was sold or is registered to another entity.
It’s not just that the generic term mamar essentially means “suck” in Spanish that makes this a sucky UDRP filing. I think this UDRP also sucks because of what John Berryhill pointed out on Twitter yesterday:
The Complainant’s US TM registration issued last month on a claim of first use in September 2018.
— John Berryhill (@Berryhillj) May 29, 2019
A DomainTools historical Whois record shows that Mrs Jello, LLC was the registrant since at least 2007. From what I can tell, Mamar Group LTD uses the Mamar.ca ccTLD domain name for its website. A Whois record for that domain name shows it was created in March of 2017. This would be ten years after Mrs Jello, LLC acquired its .com domain name.
To me, this looks like it would be impossible for the complainant to be able to prove the domain name was acquired and is being used in bad faith to target the complainant. If this can’t be proven, the UDRP is supposed to fail. Put simply, I think this UDRP should be DOA.
I understand why the complainant would want the .com domain name, but the UDRP was not created as a means of acquiring a domain name that is legitimately registered to another entity. I think it really sucks that the domain registrant has to go through a UDRP defense to keep this domain name. I would not be surprised to see a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH).
Update: Complaint was denied, and the panelist ruled this was a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. Stevan Lieberman was the attorney who represented the domain registrant.
How many times does this have to happen before you and everyone else support penalty for RDNH?
And how many times is one going to have to point out that penalty for RDNH is not “loser pays” and that the issue should not be framed or reframed as “loser pays” but is instead about simple abuse and defrauding of the process?
And how many times am I personally going to have to point out that objections to supporting penalty for RDNH by those with or whose friends have a professional and financial incentive for there to be an ever flowing abundance of UDRPs and RDNH are suspect because of that, even for those who are very popular and thought of as “saints”? (We are all prone to impurity and temptation.)
The law firms representing the major trademark owners (Int’l firms) have a lot more clout with the power brokers within the Icann circle than domainers. If anything, if Icann changes the rules for UDRP, it will be against domainers, not trademark owners.
Elliot has as much influence with Icann as John (comment above) has with the U.S. Congress.