## Facts

- A Michigan landscaping company, Lucas Nursery and Landscaping, Inc., was hired by homeowner Michelle Grosse to correct a swale in her front yard.
- Lucas Nursery performed the work in May 2000; Grosse believed the work was deficient and repeatedly complained to the company.
- After an unsatisfactory Better Business Bureau process, Grosse registered the domain name `lucasnursery.com`.
- Grosse posted a website titled “My Lucas Landscaping Experience” to publicize her complaints, including allegations of poor workmanship and the cost of hiring another contractor to fix the work.
- Lucas Nursery demanded that Grosse stop operating the site and later asserted the site caused lost customers and contributed to the business closing.

## Issues

1. Whether Grosse’s registration and use of `lucasnursery.com` violated the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1125(d)(1)(A), by reflecting a “bad faith intent to profit” from Lucas Nursery’s mark.

## Decision

- The Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Grosse.
- The court held that, even assuming the domain name was identical to Lucas Nursery’s mark, the record did not show the required “bad faith intent to profit.”
- The court found Grosse used the domain for a noncommercial consumer-criticism (“gripe”) site rather than to sell goods, run ads, divert customers for commercial gain, extort payment, or sell the domain name.

## Legal Principles

- ACPA liability requires proof that the defendant registered, trafficked in, or used a domain name identical or confusingly similar to a protected mark **and** did so with a “bad faith intent to profit” from the mark.
- Statutory bad-faith factors are nonexclusive and include evidence of bona fide noncommercial or fair use, attempts to divert consumers for commercial gain, and attempts to sell the domain for financial gain without bona fide use.
- A single, noncommercial consumer complaint site using a trademark in the domain name, without advertising, revenue generation, sale offers, or other commercial exploitation, generally does not establish “bad faith intent to profit” under the ACPA.

## Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit ruled that the ACPA targets profit-motivated cybersquatting, not noncommercial consumer criticism, and therefore a domain used solely to air grievances about a business did not satisfy the statute’s “bad faith intent to profit” requirement.


Lucas Nursery & Landscaping, Inc. v. Grosse, 359 F.3d 806 (6th Cir. 2004)