WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

ADMINISTRATIVE PANEL DECISION

Joran Lundh v. PRIVACYDOTLINK Customer 2898984 / Stanley Pace

Case No. D2018-1902

1. The Parties

The Complainant is Joran Lundh of Hong Kong, China, represented by Thomas Horstemeyer, LLP, United States of America (“United States”).

The Respondent is PRIVACYDOTLINK Customer 2898984 of Seven Mile Beach, Cayman Islands, Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (“United Kingdom”) / Stanley Pace of Washougal, Washington, United States, represented by Steven Rinehart, United States.

2. The Domain Name and Registrar

The disputed domain name <lascal.com> is registered with Uniregistrar Corp (the “Registrar”).

3. Procedural History

The Complaint was filed with the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (the “Center”) on August 21, 2018. On August 22, 2018, the Center transmitted by email to the Registrar a request for registrar verification in connection with the disputed domain name. On August 22, 2018, the Registrar transmitted by email to the Center its verification response disclosing registrant and contact information for the disputed domain name which differed from the named Respondent and contact information in the Complaint. The Center sent an email communication to the Complainant on August 29, 2018 providing the registrant and contact information disclosed by the Registrar, and inviting the Complainant to submit an amendment to the Complaint. The Complainant filed an amended Complaint on September 5, 2018.

The Center verified that the Complaint together with the amended Complaint satisfied the formal requirements of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Policy” or “UDRP”), the Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”), and the WIPO Supplemental Rules for Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Supplemental Rules”).

In accordance with the Rules, paragraphs 2 and 4, the Center formally notified the Respondent of the Complaint, and the proceedings commenced on September 11, 2018. In accordance with the Rules, paragraph 5, the due date for Response was October 1, 2018. On September 28, 2018, the Respondent requested an automatic four-day extension of the deadline to file the Response. The Center granted the requested extension and confirmed that the new deadline for the Response was October 5, 2018. The Response was filed with the Center on October 5, 2018.

The Center appointed Andrew D. S. Lothian as the sole panelist in this matter on October 16, 2018. The Panel finds that it was properly constituted. The Panel has submitted the Statement of Acceptance and Declaration of Impartiality and Independence, as required by the Center to ensure compliance with the Rules, paragraph 7.

4. Factual Background

The Complainant is a natural person and is a Swedish citizen residing in Hong Kong, China. In a formal declaration dated July 27, 2018, the Complainant states that it has used the name “Lascal” both as an unregistered trademark and corporate identifier since 1986, originally via a Swedish company named Lascal AB which acted as a distributor for prams and strollers in Sweden. From 1987, Lascal AB designed and offered a special line of prams which it marketed throughout Sweden, and distributed related catalogues, all under the LASCAL mark. The Complainant notes that its said Swedish company also used the LASCAL mark in connection with stroller products called “KiddyBoard” and “BuggyBoard” from 1993, adding that said mark was later used to market and sell such product in other European countries and in the United States. The Complainant maintains that it acquired civil and common law rights in various jurisdictions through the use of the LASCAL mark.

The Complainant is the owner of registered trademarks for the word mark LASCAL in a variety of different territories, all of which were registered in 2005 or later. For example, the Complainant is the owner of European Union registered trademark no. 3866175, registered on November 30, 2005 and United States registered trademark no. 3209327, registered on February 13, 2007, each in international classes 12, 19 and 20 and each for the word mark LASCAL. The Complainant also owns European Union registered trademark no. 13531702 for the word mark LASCAL BUGGYBOARD, registered on June 1, 2015 in international class 12.

The disputed domain name was created on May 5, 1997. The Complainant has presented no less than 74 historical WhoIs records dating from between 2001 and 2018 in respect of the disputed domain name which illustrate the fact that from March 6, 2001 to around May 4, 2016, the registrant of the disputed domain name was “Las Cal Corporation” with an address in Las Vegas, Nevada (ignoring a break in the registrant record due to the temporary adoption of a privacy service where registrant continuity can be established through use of the same nameservers). As at the latter date, the disputed domain name’s forthcoming expiration date would have been May 6, 2016. A historic WhoIs record dated May 8, 2016 shows that the registrant name has been replaced with “Pending Renewal or Deletion” and with nameservers at the domain name <pendingrenewaldeletion.com> most probably indicating that the then registrar’s deletion process had triggered. Such registrant remained on the historic WhoIs until June 30, 2016 when it was replaced with the Respondent’s details, bearing an address in Flower Mound, Texas, United States and an email address using the “Gmail” service. Upon registrar verification, the Respondent remained the same although the address had been changed to one in Washougal, Washington, United States. The “Gmail” service email address and contact telephone number remained the same. At no time was the creation date of the disputed domain name amended or altered.

All available screenshots provided by the Complainant from the “DomainTools” service dating from 2004 to 2015 show that the disputed domain name was originally used for the website of a fast food franchisee for Nevada, United States using the name “Las-Cal Corporation”. During the period when the registrant was named “Pending Renewal or Deletion”, a screenshot of the website associated with the disputed domain name dated May 10, 2016 shows a mainly blank page with the legend “Error. Page cannot be displayed. Please contact your service provider...”. After the registrant was changed to the Respondent, the historic WhoIs record shows the delegated nameservers being changed to those at <sedoparking.com> at some point between June 30, 2016 and July 22, 2016. The first available screenshot in the evidence thereafter is dated December 7, 2016 and features a pay-per-click links page operated by the domain broker and domain parking service “Sedo”. This states that the disputed domain name may be available for sale. The advertising links refer to the Complainant’s marks and products, such as for example, “Lascal Buggy Board”, “Lascal KiddyGuard” and “Lascal KiddyBoard”.

The Respondent states that the Complainant’s mark is a common last name and an abbreviation for Las Vegas – California and that it registered the disputed domain name because of its descriptive meaning and its value as a six letter domain name.

5. Parties’ Contentions

A. Complainant

The Complainant contends that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which it has rights; that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name; and that the disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith.

The Complainant refers to the various products which it has sold under the LASCAL mark since 1986, noting that it is the owner of the trademarks referred to in the factual background section above among others. The Complainant adds that it has licensed the LASCAL mark to its various trading companies. The Complainant notes that the second level of the disputed domain name is identical to the Complainant’s LASCAL mark and asserts that the generic Top-Level Domain (“gTLD”) “.com” should not be taken into account in the comparison process.

The Complainant asserts that before any notice of the dispute to the Respondent there was no evidence of the Respondent’s use of or demonstrable preparations to use the disputed domain name or a name corresponding thereto in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services and that the Respondent has not been commonly known by the disputed domain name. The Complainant submits that the disputed domain name has been offered for sale and has used “Sedo Domain Parking” to provide a “link farm”.

The Complainant notes that the present Respondent was not the original registrant of the disputed domain name and did not appear in the corresponding WhoIs records until June 30, 2016. The Complainant submits that in any event the disputed domain name was created by the original registrant ten years after the Complainant began using the LASCAL mark in Sweden and thus argues that there is no bona fide offering of goods or services at the website for the disputed domain name.

The Complainant notes its belief that the disputed domain name lapsed on or around June 17, 2016 and narrates the terms of the WhoIs records around that time as provided in the factual background section above. The Complainant asserts that any subsequent registrations of the disputed domain name were performed after the Complainant obtained various trademark registrations in 2005 and adds that it appears that the Respondent, Stanley Pace, did not acquire the disputed domain name until June 2016.

The Complainant asserts that even if the Complainant can prove that it is the same registrant as that at the creation date of the disputed domain name, the Complainant has changed its use to resort to a classic case of cybersquatting. The Complainant notes that from at least June 2004 to October 2015, the disputed domain name resolved to a website that advertised a fast food franchiser. The Complainant asserts that between October 21, 2015 and December 6, 2017 the Respondent intentionally changed the use of the disputed domain name to a pay-per-click link farm web page, unrelated to the business of a fast food franchiser. The Complainant notes that this new use occurred after the Complainant had acquired registered trademark rights in the LASCAL mark. The Complainant asserts that at least one renewal of the disputed domain name must have occurred since the use was changed, adding that there has been no legitimate use since renewal. The Complainant concludes that the disputed domain name has been registered and/or renewed to intentionally attempt to attract users for commercial gain by creating a likelihood of confusion as to the source of the LASCAL mark.

The Complainant also provides evidence of the Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name in connection with an alleged intent to sell the same for a price significantly higher than its registration costs. The Complainant provides evidence of its attempts to negotiate to purchase the disputed domain name between July 2017 and August 2018 via a domain name negotiation platform and marketplace indicating an opening offer from the Complainant of USD 4,000 on July 6, 2017, increased by the Complainant to USD 9,000 on July 19, 2017; followed by a counter-offer by the Respondent of USD 38,000 on August 5, 2017, rejected by the Complainant; concluding with a counter-offer by the Respondent of USD 9,999 on August 23, 2018 which latter offer ultimately expired without acceptance. The Complainant suggests that the Respondent’s latter counter-offer was submitted in response to a notification that the Complaint was pending.

The Complainant notes that the Respondent has continued to host a pay-per-click link farm at the website associated with the disputed domain name after notification of the Complaint. The Complainant states that the links on the said website refer to its LASCAL and LASCAL BUGGYBOARD marks (the latter spelt “LASCAL BUGGY BOARD”) but that the links do not direct to the Complainant’s official website or to third party sites which sell the Complainant’s product but to another pay-per-click link farm page. The Complainant asserts that this amounts to steering Internet users to additional pay-per-click pages while taking advantage of the similarity with the Complainant’s marks and submits that this is the essence of bad faith under the Policy.

The Complainant indicates that the use of a privacy protection service by the Respondent to hide its registration details is evocative of a bad faith attempt to evade enforcement of legitimate third party rights or to obstruct proceedings commenced under the Policy.

B. Respondent

The Respondent asserts that the Complainant has not carried its burden as it has not shown bad faith registration. The Respondent asserts that it registered the disputed domain name in good faith as it is a common last name and a six letter abbreviation for “Las Vegas, California”. The Respondent adds that the Complainant has repeatedly approached the Respondent under false pretenses to attempt to induce the Respondent into entering a purchase contract for the disputed domain name. The Respondent asserts that as the Complainant has now broken such contract it has put the present proceeding, as a business and contract dispute, outside the scope of the Policy.

The Respondent refers to an extract from a website at “www.hebrewsurnames.com” which states that there are Jewish families in Argentina with the surname “Lascal” and that “some people” having such surname are buried in a Jewish cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina including one named individual in 1960. The Respondent claims that the expression “lascal” also denotes the planned route of “several new roads and trains interconnecting the Las Vegas metropolitan area and Southern California”, adding that this is a potentially useful expression to describe the economic relationship between geographic locations.

The Respondent notes that three, four and five letter domain names in the gTLD “.com” have grown to be extremely valuable and are mostly all registered, such that the shortness of the present six character disputed domain name and its lack of numerals or special characters was a further factor in attracting the Respondent to it. The Respondent notes that a number of cases under the Policy have begun to recognize that three character domain names are generally in widespread use as acronyms or otherwise and that it is entirely conceivable that a respondent registered such a domain name for a good faith purpose. The Respondent adds that panels under the Policy have “taken a dim view” of complainants seeking to transfer such short domain names where the registrant is a reseller of generic or descriptive domain names, even if there has been an active attempt to sell the domain name concerned to a trademark holder.

The Respondent repeats that it registered the disputed domain name because of its generic or descriptive meaning and asserts that the Complainant “had no registered trademark in Sweden or anywhere else and still has none”. The Respondent contends that the Complaint is a bad faith attempt to strip the disputed domain name away from the Respondent merely because the Complainant wants it. The Respondent asserts that the Complainant’s evidence must establish that the Respondent was clearly aware of the Complainant’s product and that the clear aim of the Respondent’s registration was to take advantage of the confusion between the disputed domain name and the Complainant’s rights, submitting that the Complainant has made no such showing. The Respondent indicates that there is no evidence that it received either constructive or actual notice of the Complainant’s rights. The Respondent adds that it resides in a different hemisphere from the Complainant and speaks a different language.

The Respondent submits that the use of a common word domain name related to the descriptive meaning thereof constitutes use in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services pursuant to paragraph 4(c)(i) of the Policy. The Respondent describes the requirements in United States law for a trademark to be distinctive and notes that the fact that the disputed domain name is descriptive further establishes the Respondent’s legitimate interest in the disputed domain name.

The Respondent asserts that the Complainant induced the Respondent into offering to sell the disputed domain name by “affirmatively contacting the Respondent and making purchase offers”. The Respondent notes that it did not independently solicit offers from the Complainant. The Respondent argues that the Complainant’s failure to make this distinction in the Complaint amounts to a misrepresentation or omission. The Respondent states that the fact that the Complainant contracted to purchase the disputed domain name and committed fraud in the procurement of such contract puts the present dispute outside the Policy as it now involves contract interpretation. The Respondent asserts that the Policy is narrowly crafted to apply to a particular type of abusive cybersquatting.

6. Discussion and Findings

To succeed, the Complainant must demonstrate that all of the elements listed in paragraph 4(a) of the Policy have been satisfied:

(i) the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;

(ii) the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the disputed domain name; and

(iii) the disputed domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

A. Preliminary Issue: Complainant’s request to make a supplemental filing

Paragraph 12 of the Rules provides that it is for the panel to request, in its sole discretion, any further statements or documents from the parties it may deem necessary to decide the case. Paragraph 10 of the Rules provides, inter alia, that the panel has authority to determine the admissibility, materiality and weight of the evidence. Supplemental filings are generally discouraged, unless specifically requested by the panel.

By email dated October 9, 2018, the Complainant requested leave from the Panel to prepare and file a narrowly tailored sur-reply/response to address the allegations of fraud and false pretenses newly raised in the Response. The Complainant added that it intended to file an annex including a listing of other cases in which the Respondent was a party which may include additional evidence of bad faith registration of the disputed domain name.

In the present case, the Panel does not consider that it requires any additional information from either of the Parties to allow it to reach a decision on the merits. Furthermore, the identity of the Respondent was something known to the Complainant following verification by the Registrar and any submissions which the Complainant wished to make in light of such verification should have been included in the amended Complaint. In all of these circumstances, the Complainant’s request for leave to make a supplemental filing is denied.

B. Identical or Confusingly Similar

Under this element of the Policy, the Complainant must demonstrate that it has rights in a trademark and that the disputed domain name is identical or confusingly similar to such trademark. It is not necessary for the purposes of the assessment under this element that the trademark concerned pre-date the creation of the domain name at issue.

The Complainant has shown that it is the proprietor of a variety of registered trademarks for the word mark LASCAL, examples of which were provided in the factual background section above. This mark is alphanumerically identical to the second level of the disputed domain name. This is sufficient for the Panel to find confusing similarity between the disputed domain name and the Complainant’s trademark as the applicable top-level suffix in a domain name, in the present case “.com” is typically disregarded under this test (see section 1.11 of the WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”)).

Accordingly, the Panel finds that the disputed domain name is confusingly similar to a trademark in which the Complainant has rights and that the requirements of paragraph 4(a)(i) of the Policy have been satisfied.

C. Rights or Legitimate Interests

Paragraph 4(c) of the Policy lists several ways in which the Respondent may demonstrate rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name:

“Any of the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be proved based on its evaluation of all evidence presented, shall demonstrate your rights or legitimate interests to the domain name for purposes of paragraph 4(a)(ii):

(i) before any notice to you of the dispute, your use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services; or

(ii) you (as an individual, business, or other organization) have been commonly known by the domain name, even if you have acquired no trademark or service mark rights; or

(iii) you are making a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name, without intent for commercial gain to misleadingly divert consumers or to tarnish the trademark or service mark at issue”.

The consensus of previous decisions under the Policy is that a complainant may establish this element by making out a prima facie case, not rebutted by the respondent, that the respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in a domain name. In the present case, the Panel finds that the Complainant has established the requisite prima facie case based on its submissions that before any notice of the dispute to the Respondent there was no evidence of the Respondent’s use of or demonstrable preparations to use the disputed domain name or a name corresponding thereto in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services, that the Respondent has not been commonly known by the disputed domain name and that the disputed domain name has been offered for sale and has been used in connection with pay-per-click links which have targeted the Complainant’s trademark. In these circumstances, the burden of production shifts to the Respondent to bring forward evidence of its rights and legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.

The bulk of the Respondent’s case focuses on the third element of the Policy, namely its assertion that the Complainant has not carried its burden as it has not shown bad faith registration. That said, the Respondent maintains that it has rights and legitimate interests in the disputed domain name because it is alternatively a “common last name”, an abbreviation for “Las Vegas, California” and/or the name of a planned route linking geographic locations. The first problem for the Respondent’s case is that it has provided no evidence relating to the name of the alleged route or that “lascal” is an accepted abbreviation. While it has provided evidence of the existence of a last name “Lascal”, this evidence is vague in the extreme and certainly does not provide confirmation that the term is used as a “common” last name as the Respondent contends. The greater challenge for the Respondent’s case is however that even if it had put forward suitable evidence of the alleged generic, descriptive or geographic uses there is no evidence that the Respondent itself has used or made demonstrable preparations to use the disputed domain name in connection with any of these. Since the Respondent became the registrant of the disputed domain name, the available evidence shows that it appears to have been used only in connection with the provision of pay-per-click links which target the Complainant’s trademark. This evidence has not been contested or otherwise explained by the Respondent. Such use cannot confer any rights or legitimate interests upon it. It is likewise notable that the Respondent does not assert that it had anything to do with the former fast food franchising corporation which appears to have used the disputed domain name in connection with what may have been a bona fide offering of goods and services before the Respondent became the registrant of the disputed domain name.

In these circumstances, the Panel considers that the Respondent has failed to demonstrate by evidence and submissions that its case is sufficient to rebut the Complainant’s prima facie case and accordingly finds that the Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name. The requirements of paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy have been satisfied.

D. Registered and Used in Bad Faith

In terms of the third element of the Policy, the Panel must determine whether the Respondent registered, or acquired, the disputed domain name in bad faith. Assuming such a finding, the Panel must determine whether the disputed domain name is being used in bad faith. Paragraph 4(b) of the Policy provides four, non-exclusive, circumstances that, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

“(i) circumstances indicating that you have registered or you have acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of that complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of your documented out of pocket costs directly related to the domain name; or

(ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service

mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, provided that you have engaged in a pattern of such conduct; or

(iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor; or

(iv) by using the domain name, you have intentionally attempted to attract, for commercial gain, Internet users to your web site or other on line location, by creating a likelihood of confusion with the complainant’s mark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site or location or of a product or service on your web site or location.”

In the present case there is detailed evidence before the Panel suggesting that the Respondent is not the original registrant of the disputed domain name but rather acquired this at the point where a change of registrant occurs in the historic WhoIs. This is of significance as, prior to that date, the evidence indicates that the disputed domain name may have been registered and used for legitimate purposes by an entity unrelated to the Complainant or its line of business. Due to its importance to the Complainant’s case, the Complaint places this matter firmly in issue and it is of some significance that the Respondent does not engage with the topic at all, preferring to rely on the ambiguity contained within its factually correct but contextually vague statement that the Complainant did not have any registered trademarks when the disputed domain name was originally created. In any event, the Panel notes that the Respondent does not attempt to deny what appears to be a sound and evidence-based supposition on the part of the Complainant regarding the Respondent’s likely acquisition of the disputed domain name. Nor does the Respondent claim any connection to the former registrant or an unbroken or underlying chain of ownership between the various registrants (on this topic, see the discussions in BMEzine.com, LLC. v. Gregory Ricks / Gee Whiz Domains Privacy Service, WIPO Case No. D2008-0882 and Akris Prêt-à-Porter AG v. Fresh Enterprise Limited and Andrew Kris, WIPO Case No. D2011-0366). In all of these circumstances, and in the absence of countervailing evidence, the Panel finds on the balance of probabilities that the Respondent acquired the disputed domain name between May 8, 2016 and June 30, 2016 when the WhoIs was changed to show its status as registrant.

UDRP panels typically assess the question of registration in bad faith as at the date when the respondent took possession of the disputed domain name and not at its original creation date (see, for example, Heraeus Kulzer GmbH v. Whois Privacy Services Pty Ltd / Stanley Pace, WIPO Case No. D2016-0245, a case involving the present Respondent and featuring a similar acquisition of a domain name after its date of creation). Accordingly, the Panel will assess the question of registration in bad faith in the present case as at the period between May 8, 2016 and June 30, 2016. The Panel is satisfied that, at that time, the Complainant’s trademark had been registered in the United States, being the Respondent’s jurisdiction, for just under a decade. According to its declaration, the Complainant had been engaged in commerce in the United States in connection with the sales of its LASCAL branded goods, including those bearing the LASCAL, KIDDYGUARD and BUGGYBOARD marks, since 1999. The Complainant provided evidence of its sales displays which it says were used in such jurisdiction. On this evidence, there is thus the reasonable potential for the Respondent to have had actual knowledge of the Complainant’s rights in its LASCAL mark when it acquired the disputed domain name.

The evidence also shows that the Respondent changed the nameservers to which the disputed domain name was delegated to those at <sedoparking.com> almost immediately after its status as registrant was first noted on the WhoIs records. In other words, it adopted a pay-per-click strategy for the disputed domain name as soon as it came into its possession. Importantly, the first available screenshot in the evidence, from December 7, 2016, features a pay-per-click links page containing advertising links referring to the Complainant’s marks and products, such as for example, “Lascal Buggy Board”, “Lascal KiddyGuard” and “Lascal KiddyBoard”. This evidence is perfectly adequate to allow the Panel to make the reasonable inference that the Respondent acquired the disputed domain name with knowledge of and intent to target the Complainant’s rights in its LASCAL trademark, with a view to diverting traffic with intent for commercial gain, as contemplated by paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy. Furthermore, there is nothing in the Respondent’s submissions or evidence which might lead the Panel away from such inference. The Respondent’s suggestion that it acquired the disputed domain name in order to use it in connection with alleged generic, descriptive or geographic uses is contradicted by the actual use which it made of the disputed domain name. Neither does the Respondent claim any connection to the previous use to which the disputed domain name was put from the date of its creation, nor any link to the corresponding original registrant.

The Panel is fortified in the inference which it has made from the evidence on the record when previous decisions of panels under the Policy relative to the Respondent and its activities are also factored into the equation, such as for example Heraeus Kulzer GmbH v. Whois Privacy Services Pty Ltd / Stanley Pace, supra and Yumiko, LLC v. Domain Hostmaster, Customer ID: 44519875664713, Whois Privacy Services Pty Ltd / Stanley Pace, WIPO Case No. D2015-1669, the latter of which contains a listing of multiple cases which concerned disputes relating to pay-per-click or parking pages where findings were made against the Respondent for instances of unjustified domain name registration. The Panel notes for completeness that the historic WhoIs in respect of the disputed domain name dated April 26, 2017 contains an address which links the Respondent to these previous cases.

Turning to the question of the negotiations to purchase the disputed domain name, the Panel notes that the Respondent seeks to evade the thrust of the Policy by arguing that there is a contractual dispute between the Parties. Such dispute is said to arise because the Complainant is alleged to have induced the Respondent into offering the disputed domain name for sale by “affirmatively contacting the Respondent and making purchase offers”. The Panel is not exactly certain of the nature of the contractual dispute which the Respondent is claiming has occurred. The Respondent evidently placed the disputed domain name on an aftermarket sales platform, namely “Sedo”, with an indication that it may be available for sale, thus inviting approaches and offers from all interested parties including the Complainant, although only the Complainant was being targeted by the pay-per-click advertising published by the Respondent. There is no evidence before the Panel that any contract was made between the Parties regarding the sale of the disputed domain name at all and, indeed, the evidence which is available points to negotiations having been abortive either due to the Parties rejecting each other’s offers or such offers timing out on the negotiation platform. There is thus no indication to the Panel’s mind that this case presents any issues along the lines described by the panel in The Thread.com, LLC v. Jeffrey S. Poploff, WIPO Case No. D2000-1470. Nevertheless, the offering of the disputed domain name for sale for a substantial sum in circumstances where it was being used to target the trademark value of the name rather than any generic, descriptive or geographic use raises a further inference of registration and use in bad faith in accordance with paragraph 4(b)(i) of the Policy.

In all of the above circumstances, the Panel finds that the disputed domain name was registered and has been used in bad faith and accordingly that the requirements of paragraph 4(a)(iii) of the Policy have been satisfied.

7. Decision

For the foregoing reasons, in accordance with paragraphs 4(i) of the Policy and 15 of the Rules, the Panel orders that the disputed domain name <lascal.com> be transferred to the Complainant.

Andrew D. S. Lothian
Sole Panelist
Date: October 30, 2018