The Complainant is Ontario’s largest independent deck
design, supplier and builder with showrooms in Toronto, Oakville, Oshawa and
Milton. The Complainant’s trade name is
The Deck Store Inc., has been using thedeckstore.ca as its web site, and asserts
common law trade-mark rights in THE DECK STORE. The Complainant owned the
disputed Domain Name in 2008, but failed to renew it. The Domain Name was registered on May 13,
2010 by Deck Masters of Canada, who subsequently sold the Domain Name to The
Deck Store Ltd. (in June, 2013). Of note: the Registrant opened its store THE
DECK STORE in Edmonton in 2010.
The Panel found that the Complainant failed to establish
that its trade-mark was distinctive so as to distinguish its wares/services
from other competitors in the business as at the date of the registration of
the Domain Name, and relies on the CIPO trade-mark examiner’s report that the
Complainant’s THE DECK STORE trade-mark application was clearly descriptive or
deceptively misdescriptive of its services. The Panel addressed other issues,
including a refusal to award costs for reverse domain name hijacking and
finding leniency on the Complainant for imputing bad faith assumed on the part
of its nemesis, Deck Masters of Canada (see thedeckstoreinc.ca).
You can read the decision here.
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