- Impact
- 8,399
“A 'cybersquatting' lawsuit taken by the Dublin-registered arm of Office Depot Europe against the US arm of Office Depot over the use of the popular domain name viking.com has backfired after the complaint was thrown out and Office Depot Europe's private equity owner was found to have engaged in "reverse domain name hijacking".
The dispute arose after Aurelius RHO GTO Development Ltd - registered in Rosemount Business Park, Ballycoolin, Dublin 11 - completed the acquisition of Office Depot Europe in January 2017. Although the deal included Office Depot's B2B delivery business Viking, it failed to check if the Viking.com domain name was part of the deal.
While the dot.co.uk domain name was included in the deal, the dot.com version was absent from the list of intellectual property handed over with the sale. Office Depot US insists it was never part of the initial transaction.
When private equity firm Aurelius discovered this, it tried to buy the domain from Office Depot but was unsuccessful.
https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/office-depot-domain-name-row-erupts-36807432.html
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2017-2174
The dispute arose after Aurelius RHO GTO Development Ltd - registered in Rosemount Business Park, Ballycoolin, Dublin 11 - completed the acquisition of Office Depot Europe in January 2017. Although the deal included Office Depot's B2B delivery business Viking, it failed to check if the Viking.com domain name was part of the deal.
While the dot.co.uk domain name was included in the deal, the dot.com version was absent from the list of intellectual property handed over with the sale. Office Depot US insists it was never part of the initial transaction.
When private equity firm Aurelius discovered this, it tried to buy the domain from Office Depot but was unsuccessful.
https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/office-depot-domain-name-row-erupts-36807432.html
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2017-2174
