The Complainant owns the very popular POTTERY
BARN and POTTERY BARN KIDS trademarks, registered in Canada prior to the
registration of the Domain Name. Interestingly, the Registrant owns a competing
business, pinkiblue, but is using the website as a pay-per-click site.
The
Registrant was represented by counsel and requested adjournments and suspension
of the Complaint, which the Panel refused to do. The Panel found that the
Domain Name was registered in bad faith because the Registrant owned numerous
brand-name .ca domain names including babybjorn.ca, buybuybaby.ca,
westcoastkids.ca, and bumbleride.ca, among others. Additionally, the
Registrant was obviously capitalizing on the Complainant's marks.
The Panel had
an interesting discussion on the production of without prejudice settlement
emails exchanged between the parties (and the potential panel bid in reviewing
these documents), and despite offers to sell the domain name for in excess of
reasonable fees associated with registering the domain name, it refused to find
bad faith on this basis.
You can read the decision here.
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