Saturday, April 18, 2015

#279 - urbansawing.ca TRANSFER GRANTED

The Complainant, Urban Sawing & Scanning Co. Ltd., uses the trade name URBAN SAWING in association with its concrete drilling, sawing and scanning business in British Columbia for 39 years.  In March, 2010 the Complainant registered the domain name urbansaw.com. The administrative contact for the Registrant signed a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) and offered to purchase the outstanding shares of the Complainant, which LOI was eventually cancelled by the Complainant.  On February 26, 2014, the Registrant registered the Domain Name.  The Registrant was operating the web site and directing users to the Complainant’s competitor, but it is now under construction – and states that the domain has been recently sold.

The Panel noted that there was no evidence that the Registrant had rights in the URBAN SAWING trademark or trade name. The Panel found that the LOI was not accepted by the Complainant until after the time the Registrant registered the Domain Name, and there is no automatic color of right with respect to the registration.  The Panel further held that bad faith was established due to the Registrant’s conduct following the cancellation of the LOI, including refusing to transfer the Domain Name to the Complainant and directing the web site to the Complainant’s competitor.


The Panel refused to order costs to the Registrant because it was not successful in its response– and noted that it was troubled by the fact that there were no appendices to the Complaint or any statements made under oath – and the negotiations regarding the LOI were left for Reply submissions (the Registrant was therefore unable to respond).

You can read the full decision here.