The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has determined that the registration of the domain name leasecomm.org by a disgruntled former customer was made in bad faith, thus violating the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (“ACPA”), 15 U.S.C. ยง1125(d). The court placed special emphasis on the fact that the registrant had offered to sell the domain name to the rightful owner of the LEASECOMM mark without having used the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering for sale of goods or services.
The procedural alignment of the parties in this case was a bit unique. Plaintiff Harrison, a retired truck driver, had lost a dispute with Defendant Microfinancial over the domain name leasecomm.org. The dispute had been submitted to arbitration pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy before an administrative panel of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”). Microfinancial, Inc. v. Harrison, Case No. D2003-0396. Before the domain name could be transferred as ordered by the WIPO panel, Harrison filed suit to enjoin the transfer. Microfinancial counterclaimed under the ACPA, and both parties moved for summary judgment. The court granted Microfinancial’s motion, holding that Harrison had a bad faith intent to profit from the use of the LEASECOMM mark.
Leasecomm, Inc. (“Leasecomm”) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Microfinancial, and owns the mark LEASECOMM. The mark has been used in commerce since 1985 and is the subject of pending applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Leasecomm also owns the domain names leasecomm.com and leasecomm.net.
Harrison had become unhappy with the terms of a business arrangement he had made with Leasecomm, and in retaliation, registered the domain name leasecomm.org. He established a site at leasecomm.org critical of Microfinancial and Leasecomm’s conduct. Harrison offered to “give” the leasecomm.org domain name to Microfinancial in return for compliance with various demands, including refunding money Microfinancial had allegedly “stolen” from “victims” and writing letters of apology.
Harrison claimed that his offer to transfer the domain name in exchange for compliance with his demands was merely “rhetorical and polemical” and thus did not evidence a serious offer to make a deal. The court rejected Harrison’s argument and found that “the undisputed evidence is clear that Harrison sought to use the offered transfer of the domain name to Microfinancial as leverage to obtain financial benefit for himself and others (whom he described as victims.)”
The court considered several other bad faith factors under the ACPA (e.g., Harrison had registered multiple domain names with were identical or confusingly similar to Microfinancial’s trademarks) to determine that the Harrison registered the domain name in bad faith. It concluded that no reasonable jury could have found that Harrison did not have a bad faith intent to profit from his use of the domain name.
Harrison v. Microfinancial, Inc., 2005 WL 435255 (D.Mass., February 24, 2005).