Ksuite.com UDRP ruling announced, registrant keeps 20-year-old domain name

Recently, a UDRP dispute case regarding the domain name Ksuite.com was officially ruled: the complaint was dismissed, and the domain name remained in the name of the original registrant. The case was filed by Swiss cloud service provider Infomaniak Network SA, the holder of the "KSUITE" trademark, claiming that the domain name was suspected of malicious registration and use, and requested a transfer of ownership.

The focus of the dispute is that Ksuite.com was registered in December 2004, while the earliest registration time of the Swiss and international trademarks held by the complainant was January 2024. The complainant claimed that the domain name had recently changed ownership, and the domain name was publicly priced on the sales platform and rejected its offer, and then pointed to a sales website that it believed was related to the respondent, which had "malicious use".

The respondent gv, llc firmly denied the change of ownership, stating that it had always held the domain name since registration, and submitted a large amount of evidence, including long-term resolution records, Wayback history page screenshots, and usage pages related to its projects. It also listed several "x+suite" combination domain names it holds, indicating that the registration behavior is for a unified brand strategy.

(Ksuite.com currently in use)

After comprehensively reviewing the evidence of both parties, the panel pointed out that no credible evidence of domain name transfer was found, and the complainant failed to prove that its trademark existed or had popularity at the time of domain name registration. Therefore, it was determined that it could not constitute "bad faith registration", and the complainant failed to meet one of the three UDRP standards, and the ruling was dismissed.

In addition, the panel also rejected the respondent's request to identify the other party as "reverse domain name hijacking" (RDNH). Although it pointed out that some of the behaviors were inappropriate, they did not constitute abuse of procedures.

This case once again shows that the domain name registration time is earlier than the trademark right and the evidence of use is retained, which plays a decisive role in UDRP disputes.