Dispute Resolution Service (DRS) of the British national registry Nominet ruled on a complaint filed by the company Mango, a large Spanish fashion manufacturer and retailer, against New Zealand domain investor Garth Piesse. The Spanish company have owned Mango trademark for more than 10 years. Piesse registered domains mango.co.uk and mango.uk, which became a stumbling block, only in 2013-2014. The more interesting is the decision made by DRS. The Service not only hasn’t transferred the domains to Mango but also has found it guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking).
The Spanish company can only blame itself. Better say – they should blame their intention to save money. It appears from the proceedings materials that Mango tried to buy the domains using intermediaries. But the New Zealander wanted to sell them for a six-figure price. After that Mango applied to DRS, and blamed the investor for abusive registration of names that use its trademark. However, the panel chaired by Tim Brown clearly indicated that the word mango is a commonly used word and Mango had to present sufficient evidence of its claims. It was not submitted, moreover, it became clear that the company failed to buy the domains, decided to get them for free. Garth Piesse for his part had a very well-argued defense. First of all, he proved that in New Zealand where he lived the company Mango was not present, so he didn’t even know that the brand existed. Secondly, the investor owns 18 thousand domain names and many of them are the names of fruits.
As a result Mango suffered a crushing defeat. By the way, during 13 years that DRS exists this is only the 6th case when the applicant is found guilty in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking.
