Friday, May 11, 2012

#189 - Ebates Canada, Inc. v. Cranhill & Company (Complaint dismissed)


The Complainant did not establish its case and the panelist therefore dismissed the ebates.ca Complaint.

The Registrant (Cranhill & Company) responded to the Complaint. The Complainant is the exclusive licensee of the name and trade-mark EBATES, owned by its corporate parent, Ebates Performance Marketing.  The Complainant’s corporate parent filed a trade-mark application for the EBATES mark, which is currently being opposed by the Registrant.    The issue in this case was whether the Complainant had rights prior to the date of registration.  The domain name was registered in October, 2000. The Complainant was not incorporated until 2011.  Although the Complainant stated that first use of the mark occurred in August 1999, the panel found that the parent company licensor was not a Complainant (likely because it does not meet the Canadian presence requirements) and therefore dismissed the Complaint. 

No comments:

Post a Comment