Jesus performs miracle to win cybersquatting case

He made a tough case look easy.

Oh, Jesus was definitely cybersquatting. But he performed a miracle to get away with it.

Cybersecurity company Sysnet North America, Inc., which operates Viking Cloud at the domain name vikingcloud.com, filed a cybersquatting complaint against the registrant of vikiMgcloud .com.

While I can’t be sure, Jesus apparently registered the domain. The registration data provided to Namecheap when registering the domain last month year was for the name Jesus Jesus.

If only Viking Cloud had known who it was up against when it filed the case, perhaps it would have taken a bit more care in its arguments. It certainly should have revised its case when it found out it was Jesus.

You see, Sysnet has a pending trademark application for Viking Cloud that it filed in January 2022. In order to win a cybersquatting case under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), you need to show either registered or common law rights in the name at issue that predate the domain registration.

Viking Cloud claimed common law rights and said it serves four million customers. But it kind of phoned in this part.

Panelist David Sorkin wrote:

Complainant has failed to support its claim of common law trademark rights with evidence that its putative mark has become a distinctive identifier that consumers associate with Complainant’s goods or services. Complainant has provided the Panel with a printout of its own website and an unsubstantiated claim that Complainant and its subsidiaries are “trusted by 4 million customers.” However, Complainant has provided little or no evidence related to the mark itself, including the nature of its use, sales volumes, advertising expenditures, or public recognition. The fact that Respondent appears to be targeting and attempting to create confusion with Complainant is relevant but not sufficient to demonstrate the trademark rights required by Paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy.

I have no doubt that Viking Cloud would have won the case if it had made a decent argument for the first prong of UDRP.

Perhaps the company will consider who its adversary is before filing any more cybersquatting cases.