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Lawsuit Filed Over Domain Name Registered 16 Years Before Plaintiff's Use
HughPickens.com writes: Cybersquatting is registering, selling or using a domain name with the intent of profiting from the goodwill of someone else's trademark. It generally refers to the practice of buying up domain names that use the names of existing businesses with the intent to sell the names for a profit to those businesses. Now Andrew Allmann writes at Domain Name Wire that New York company Office Space Solutions, Inc. has filed a cybersquatting lawsuit against Jason Kneen over the domain name WorkBetter.com that Kneen registered in 1999 although Office Space Solutions didn't use the term "Work Better" in commerce until 2015. "Workbetter.com is virtually identical to, and/or confusingly similar to the WORK BETTER Service Mark, which was distinctive at the time that the Defendant renewed and/or updated the registration of workbetter.com," says the lawsuit. But according to an Office Space Solutions' filing with the USPTO, it didn't use the term "Work Better" in commerce until 2015. Office Space Solutions is making the argument that the domain name was renewed in bad faith. According to Kneen, Office Space previously tried to purchase the domain name from him and after it failed to acquire the domain name, is now trying to take it via a lawsuit.
1. You don't need to make commercial use to have the right of a domain
2. Use of the domain is anything that links to the domain (even if not in "public" use)
Frivoulus case by the look of it. Service Mark owners should have the case dismissed with prejudice.
Tossing it will indeed prohibit them from trying again if the case is dismissed with prejudice. They could try the same stunt with a different service mark and a different defendant, but at that point any defense attorney worth his or her retainer is going to bring up the previously-dismissed suit as proof of acting in bad faith.