Flipkart nailed for reverse domain name hijacking

Domain was registered 10 years before it started using the eKart name.

A World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found Instakart Services Private Limited, also known as Flipkart, to have tried reverse domain name hijacking.

The company, which runs a logistic business called eKart, filed a cybersquatting complaint against eKart.com.

Instakart started using the eKart brand in 2009 or later. The domain name was registered in 1999.

Ozguc Bayraktar told the panel he registered the domain in 1999, and the Complainant didn’t dispute this. (I can’t verify this is the case based on historical Whois; there seems to have been a change of ownership at some point.)

The timeline doesn’t work for Instakart; the Respondent couldn’t have registered the domain to target a non-existent brand.

Panelist Steven A. Maier wrote:

The Panel considers this to be a clear case of attempted Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. The Complainant is represented by counsel who must be taken to have been aware that the Complaint could not succeed in circumstances where the disputed domain name was registered some ten years before the Complainant’s first use of any corresponding trademark. Despite the Complainant’s certificate “that the assertions in this Complainant are warranted under the Rules and under applicable law…” there is no basis upon which the Complainant could properly have asserted that the Respondent registered the disputed domain name to create a likelihood of confusion with its (then non-existent) trademarks, or otherwise to trade off its goodwill attaching to those trademarks.