CPA Global defeated in bad faith case
Fake news? No, absolutely true - CPA Global was found to have acted in bad faith in trying to prevent use of the domain “cpaglobal-litigation.com”.
You may have missed this story, reported by World IP Review (WIPR) and World Trademark Review (WTR) among others, involving the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel decision that went against CPA Global and must have caused some embarrassment at CPA Global HQ.
What had CPA Global so concerned that it pursued such a hopeless claim? The website at https://cpaglobal-litigation.com states its purpose on its homepage:
“Bentham IMF has put in place funding for current and former CPA Global clients to pursue legal proceedings to recover unauthorized charges for patent annuity payment services.
Investigations have uncovered evidence that suggests CPA Global charges fees for patent renewal services that are consistently and significantly more than what is allowed for under its service contracts with clients.”
The decision by CPA Global to attempt to stop the domain name from being used brings to mind a fascinating book (mentioned in my article on unethical behaviour published on 28 March 2017) titled The Power Paradox – how we gain and lose influence by Dr Dacher Keltner. In his book, Keltner demonstrates that those who are afforded power tend to believe that the rules that apply to others don’t apply to them.
WIPR reported on the launch of https://cpaglobal-litigation.com in September last year when CPA Global told the publication: “CPA Global categorically and emphatically denies any wrongdoing in our business. The fees for our service are defined in our agreements with our customers, and we adhere to those agreements fully.”
It went on to say, “We consider any speculation about future litigation that might or might not take place to be a deliberate attempt to tarnish our good business reputation and, as we always have, will continue to vigorously defend ourselves against any such vexatious speculation.”
Vigour is, happily, not enough to sway a WIPO panel. When approached by WTR following announcement of the panel decision “CPA Global declined to comment”.