Panel faults financial services company for weak case and for continuing after learning the registrant’s identity.

Domain name investment company Blue Nova has successfully defended its domain name inyo.com in a UDRP dispute.

A three-person panel found that Inyo, Inc., a financial services firm, tried to reverse hijack the domain name by filing the case.

Inyo suggested that the domain name changed hands after it started using the name in commerce. It based this on the domain’s transition from a pay-per-click lander to a Venture.com domain-leasing lander in 2019. That’s after Inyo started its business.

But Blue Nova has owned the domain since 2005 and merely changed where the domain points.

The panel said that was only one of the problems with Inyo’s dispute, and it would have failed even if the domain had changed hands in 2019.

First, Inyo didn’t back up its claims that its brand is well known.

Second, Blue Nova showed extensive use of the four-letter acronym inyo.

Third, Inyo didn’t provide any evidence suggesting that Blue Nova targeted it with its registration.

In finding reverse domain name hijacking, the panel cited these issues, noting that the complainant and its counsel “should have known that its claim could not succeed under the Policy.”

The panel also admonished Inyo for failing to reconsider its case after the registrar verified the registrant’s identity.

At this point, the panel noted, “A simple Google search would have revealed Respondent’s website at bluenova.com along with prior UDRP decisions in which Respondent had prevailed. Complainant could have also ascertained that Respondent had likely acquired the disputed domain name in 2005, some ten years before Complainant began using the INYO mark for its financial services and that Complainant’s claimed change of ownership based on a change of use of the disputed domain name in 2019 was an unsupportable argument.”

Dentons US LLP represented Inyo, and ESQwire.com, P.C. represented Blue Nova.