Mattress seller Wakefit tries to hijack domains

Company was founded well after domain registered and put to use.

A mattress seller tried to reverse hijack two domain names.

Indian mattress seller Wakefit Innovations tried to reverse hijack the domains wakefit.com and wake.fit, a World Intellectual Property Organization panelist has ruled.

Wakefit Innovations, which uses the domain wakefit.co, was incorporated in 2016. Wakefit.com was registered in 2009 and put to use for a business selling an exercise device.

At the outset, this case was doomed to failure, given that the domain was registered prior to the Complainant’s existence. Add to that the legitimate business use, and there’s no reason this case should have been filed.

Wakefit Innovations made other mistakes that led to the reverse domain name hijacking decision.

It provided a timeline of events that suggested that the Respondent approached it about buying the domain for $150,000. But it turns out the Complainant first broached the subject, writing to the domain owner:

Hi Wakefit team. High-five on the awesome name both of us chose for our businesses! We are a memory-foam product-based company operating out of Bangalore, India specializing in mattresses and pillows looking to expand globally. To achieve that we believe a wakefit.com domain is essential and thus we wanted to have a conversation round it. Please let us know if you’d be interested and would be available to talk sometime next week. Thanks Wakefit Team

Panelist Nick Gardner was further peeved that Wakefit Innovations presented the Respondent’s business and its website as being pretextual when it was clearly an operating business. He also noted that there is no evidence at all to support the allegation that the Respondent was engaged in a “pattern of cybersquatting activities.”

Wakefit Innovations had sales of $120 million in 2023-2024. Its highest offer for the domain was $3,000, while the Respondent apparently asked for $150,000.

Wadhwa Law Chambers represented Wakefit Innovations, and the Respondent was self-represented.