Hat company MOVI's attempt to "reverse hijack" movi.com was rejected.

A classic case concerning short domain names and trademark timing has concluded: a three-member UDRP panel ruled that apparel company MOVI, LLC committed reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) in its complaint against movi.com. The panel denied the transfer request and ordered the domain name to remain in the respondent's name.

Case Highlights: movi.com was first created on October 2, 1995, then acquired by the respondent's predecessor on July 3, 2003. The current respondent acquired the domain name through a corporate asset acquisition in 2018. Since 2003, the domain name has primarily been used for paid placement advertising (PPC) related to movies. These facts served as important evidence in the panel's finding that the respondent had legitimate rights and interests.

Although the complainant, MOVI, LLC, commercially launched its hat brand through Kickstarter in 2019 and sold them on movihats.com, its USPTO registration of the MOVI trademark occurred on June 24, 2025, and it asserted first commercial use of the mark on May 31, 2019. The Panel found that both the registration and earlier ownership of the domain name pre-dated the complainant's existence, a fact that the complainant should have readily discovered through due diligence.

A triggering point in the dispute was a price dispute: the complainant stated that upon multiple attempts to contact the respondent through its agent (GoDaddy), the respondent was immediately quoted a non-negotiable purchase price of no less than $350,000. Based on this, the complainant claimed that the domain name was registered extortively and demanded its transfer. The Panel found that even if there were records of the price offered, it was insufficient to prove that the respondent registered or used the domain name with bad faith against the complainant.

The legal logic of the ruling reverts to the three elements of the UDRP: similarity, lack of rights or legitimate interests on the part of the respondent, and registration and use in bad faith. After examining each element, the Panel concluded that the complainant had failed to prove the second and third elements, and that the complaint, filed under verifiable facts, constituted a reverse hijacking and abuse of process. The Panel therefore rejected the ruling and explicitly designated it as RDNH.