GENEVA, Switzerland—Adult traffic service JuicyAds reports that it was handed an "absolute victory" last week by the World Intellectual Property Organization in a suit concerning squatting on a registered domain containing its name.
The disputed domain name "juicyads.online" was registered in May 2020 by the defendant, "Manas Biswal" (who also uses the moniker "Profitz" according to their domain WHOIS information).
The following day, Biswal immediately contacted JuicyAds and made an unsolicited offer for the company to purchase the domain which contained the company's internationally registered trademark.
JuicyAds provided Biswal several opportunities to transfer the domain to the company, and when Biswal failed to do so, Silverstein Legal filed suit with WIPO to seize the domain.
In response to the filing, the defendant repeatedly continued to solicit sale of the domain to JuicyAds for amounts ranging from $750 to $3,000, JuicyAds says, while simultaneously claiming to be developing "an online juice drink cart store where users can order juice drinks online." However, Biswal failed to provide evidence of such an undertaking.
The WIPO Panel stated that it "seriously doubts that the Respondent would independently choose the term JUICYADS for an online juice drink store." They continued, "While the Trade Mark is made up of two common words or terms, JUICYADS as a whole has no dictionary meaning and is not an obvious choice for an online juice store as the Respondent asserts; Notably, the 'ads' portion does not fit that narrative."
"The Panel finds that the Respondent's intent in registering the Disputed Domain Name was to profit from or otherwise exploit the Complainant's Trade Mark," the decision concluded. WIPO subsequently ordered the domain transferred to JuicyAds.
“JuicyAds will not allow anyone to abuse its intellectual property and maintains its commitment to aggressively pursuing those who seem to think that they can hide in foreign jurisdictions,” said attorney Corey D. Silverstein, of Silverstein Legal. “The audacity of the respondent in this case was a monumental error of judgment on his part and it was erroneous for him to believe that he would somehow be immune from being pursued in India.”
Silverstein continued, “The entire JuicyAds teams has spent a small fortune developing and protecting its intellectual property rights throughout the world, and I was very pleased to assist my client in getting this decision.”
In response to the decision by WIPO, the Respondent sent JuicyAds yet another unsolicited offer to purchase the domain for $1,500 despite the fact the domain had already been ordered to be transferred to the company within 10 days.
The company stated that it intends to make additional legal filings to recoup its full costs and expenses related to the WIPO litigation.
JuicyAds further noted that both the domains juicycart.online and juicecart.online are currently available for registration.
