The domain name was registered more than two decades before the company had any trademark rights.
A Forum panelist has ruled that produce company Planet Harvest, LLC, attempted to reverse hijack the domain name planetharvest.com. The company uses the hypenated domain planet-harvest.com.
Vance More registered planetharvest.com in 1999 and later moved it to his company, MV3 Inc.
Planet Harvest did not start using the name until 2023, so the case was dead on arrival. Given the dates, the respondent could not have registered the domain to target the then-non-existent mark.
Planet Harvest offered the registrant $2,201 for the domain. When the registrant countered at $100,000, the company filed the dispute, making this a classic Plan B case of reverse domain name hijacking.
Panelist Nicholas J.T. Smith cited several reasons this was reverse domain name hijacking:
- The date of the domain registration was well before the complainant’s mark existed.
- Despite being represented by counsel, the complainant advanced discredited theories, such as that a renewal is a re-registration.
- The complainant first tried to buy the domain and turned to UDRP after it didn’t like the price the registrant asked.
Rachel Saunders of Saturday Legal, LLC, represented Planet Harvest. The respondent was self-represented.
