Archive for the ‘udrp’ Category
Baylor University gets “sucks” domain back after letting it expire.
It’s pretty easy to sit down here in Austin and say that Baylor sucks.
You can get on its case for yanking a gay student’s scholarship. And for waiting until the 90s to lift a ban on dancing on campus.
There’s also that little fact that the school is in Waco.
(The one thing we can’t do any more is say that its sports programs suck.)
But now the university is claiming a bit of suckiness itself: BaylorSucks.com
Baylor University is the proud new owner of this domain name — for the second time — after winning a dispute at National Arbitration Forum for the domain.
As more proof of its suckiness, Baylor used to own the domain name BaylorSucks.com. Had it not let the domain name expire in 2008 then it wouldn’t have had to file a complaint in the first case.
You can legitimately own domains like BaylorSucks.com if you do it to criticize the university and not profit from the site. But the owner of the domain merely parked it.
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Related posts:
- Baylor Bears Go Hunting for Baylor.com
- UniversityofTexas.com Handed Over to University
- Two Texas universities win .xxx domain disputes
When you know it’s time to select a different company name…
A Colorado company just lost a UDRP for Qwizzle.com, and it’s a great example of botched company naming.
The company, Qwizzle, LLC, knew that Qwizzle.com was taken when it came up with its name. It tried to contact the owner of Qwizzle.com but had no luck. It still decided to launch its business as Qwizzle but then filed a UDRP to try to get the domain name.
It lost the UDRP because Qwizzle.com was registered before it came up with the name for its online real estate company.
I started to research where I could find Qwizzle on the web. When I Google “quizzle”, the first two results are from Facebook and Twitter respectively. Then there’s Qwizzle.co, which resolved to a blank page save for the company’s favicon. This domain appears to be owned by Qwizzle.co. Quizzle.us looks like the actual site for the company, although it’s registered to someone in Michigan.
I noticed Qwizzle.net was registered, too. Surprisingly, it’s registered by Quicken Loans. Quicken has a site called Quizzle.com, and apparently there was some confusion as to how to spell it so they picked up the Qwizzle.net name as well.
That should have been a huge red flag for Qwizzle, LLC. If people are confused that Quizzle.com might be spelled Qwizzle.com, then certainly it can be the other way around. And Quicken Loans offers mortgage loans — which is too close for comfort to a real estate site.
If I were this company I would have just gone with another name (and domain).
Qwizzle wants to disrupt the traditional home marketing and real estate business. It’s a laudable goal, but they need to pick a different name.
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Registration service offers free insurance against expensive but unfounded UDRP filings.
Francois Carrillo, the guy behind Domaining.com, has launched a new domain registrar (an eNom reseller) with an innovative twist: “UDRP insurance”.
Basically, if you’re hit with a UDRP on one of your domains registered at DONA.com then you’ll get assistance with finding a domain attorney. Selected domain attorneys offer discounted rates to DONA customers. And if you successfully defend your UDRP, DONA will reimburse you for your legal expenses.
It sounds like an interesting idea that might offer some peace of mind if you frequently get hit with bogus UDRPs.
Additionally, DONA donates 30% of its profits to the Internet Commerce Association, an advocacy group for domainers.
.Com domain registrations at DONA are $11.15.
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Related posts:
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Don’t forget to prove earlier rights if you claim them.
Publisher Hidden Values has lost a dispute over the domain name TriangleKidsDirectory.com.
Hidden Values publishes the Kids’ Directory. It also has a registered trademark for KID’S DIRECTORY.
It’s an admittedly weak mark. It’s even a concurrent use registration that is limited in geographic scope.
But, the registrant of the domain name was a former licensee of Kids Directory and published the directory in the North Carolina “triangle”. And he didn’t respond to the dispute. So the odds were tipped in Hidden Values’ favor.
Regardless of what you think of the merits of this case and if UDRP is the proper venue for it, the case seems to have come down to when Hidden Values got trademark rights in “Kid’s Directory”. And this is where the company screwed up.
Hidden Values’ complaint mentions that it started using the mark in 1990. That’s the first-use-in-commerce date on its trademark application. But the trademark application wasn’t filed until 2005, after the respondent registered the TriangleKidsDirectory.com domain name. It should have been easy for the lawyer to show some common law rights previous to 2005 that would have been acceptable to the panel, but he dropped the ball:
“In the instant proceeding, Complainant has provided no documentary or other evidence to support the date of first use in Commerce referenced in its trademark application. This Panel therefore finds there to be a lack of evidentiary basis by which it might reasonably conclude that Complainant held rights in the KID’S DIRECTORY trademark prior to the May 12, 1995 [sic] date on which Respondent registered the disputed domain name.”
Had the company’s lawyer provided what should have been easy proof, I bet the company wins this case.
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Request for .xxx domain name denied.
United Kingdom insurance company BGL Group Limited, better known as CompareTheMarket.com, is the first complainant to lose a UDRP for a .xxx domain name.
The company filed the complaint against UK resident Jon Watkins, who registered the domain back in December when .xxx became generally available.
But as I’ve argued previously, it can be rather difficult to prove bad faith in the registration of a .xxx domain name. Most complainants aren’t in the adult entertainment business. And few .xxx domain names will be parked, which could have result in PPC ads related to a complainant. So unless the mark is very famous (and not descriptive/generic) or the owner of the domain tries to sell the domain to the complainant, proving registration in bad faith isn’t easy.
That’s what happened here. A Czech Arbitration Court panel wrote:
But Complainant fails to prove bad faith registration or use of the domain. Complainant states that the domain is “completely inactive”. Complainant does not show that Respondent tried to sell the domain to Complainant, has registered other infringing names, or otherwise has tried to profit from the domain or cause any other harm to Complainant. Respondent is not shown to have had prior UDRP cases in which he has been an unsuccessful Defendant. Clearly, “compare the market” could relate to myriad different types of markets and myriad different comparisons within each one, as demonstrated by a simple web search.
I’m not quite sure why BGL went after this domain name. If it were an active domain name with porn on it and it was getting search rankings I’d understand. Otherwise this seems like a waste of money.
Companies have filed over 20 UDRP cases against .xxx domain names. None had lost prior to this case.
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You violated someone’s rights when you registered the domain, even if it wasn’t our rights.
Think you’ve seen them all?
Here’s a very creative argument from Stabilus GmbH, maker of electronic tailgate openers, on why a UDRP panel should give it the domain powerise.com.
Stabilus started using the “Powerise” term in commerce back in 2008. But the domain was been registered in 2002.
Under the guidelines of UDRP, the registrant couldn’t have registered the domain in bad faith since Stabilus didn’t have rights in the mark at the time of registration.
Hence this creativity:
The Complainant also indicates that other companies are using “Powerise” as name and trademark, such as the company Babcock Borsig (owning the trademark POWERISE POWERPLANT), and Powerise Consult, which, according to the Complainant’s verifications, would have been using the mark since 1998/99 and 2001, respectively. The Complainant contends that, therefore, the Respondent must have applied the disputed domain name on January 21, 2002 with knowledge of third parties’ rights in the name. The Complainant also states that the Respondent’s bad faith when it registered the disputed domain name must lead to a right for the transfer of it to the Complainant, even though the Complainant’s trademark registrations are more recent than the Respondent’s registration of the disputed domain name.
In other words, when you registered the domain someone else had trademark rights in the term. You registered in bad faith on someone else’s rights, so you should transfer the domain to us.
In one blow Stabilus shows that its rights in Powerise aren’t all encompassing and makes a really dumb bad faith argument.
Needless to say, Stabilus GmbH lost.
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Panel rules company can keep Norcross.com domain name.
Marchex has successfully defended the domain name Norcross.com in a UDRP with the help of domain name attorney John Berryhill.
Marchex acquired the domain when it bought Yun Ye’s Ultimate Search portfolio.
Norcross is a suburb of Atlanta and the parked page at Norcross.com has shown links related to Georgia, hotels, etc.
The complainant, Norcross Corporation, sells viscosity equipment. While I’ll applaud it for owning the domain name viscosity.com, it clearly was on the wrong side of this case.
Norcross Corporation complained that Marchex said it would only entertain offers of $30,000 or more for any of its domain names. Some panelists think they are equipped to appraise domain names and make comments about how outrageous certain asking prices are. But this three person panel gets it:
The fact that Respondent was only willing to sell the domain name to Complainants for a sum far in excess of its out-of-pocket expenses directly related to the domain name does not establish the requisite bad faith since the Respondent had a legitimate interest in the domain name. A domain name registrant is always permitted to sell a domain name to which it has rights for a profit; that constitutes bad faith only when the domain name was acquired primarily for the bad faith purpose of selling it to the trademark owner.
I’ll toast to that.
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Who actually owns this domain?
A World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) panel has ordered the domain name Pepper.com.au be transferred to Pepper Australia Pty Ltd, a home loan company.
The case was filed under .au Dispute Resolution Policy, which is different from the standard UDRP. Compared to UDRP, the .au policy is more lax on proving rights in a mark. It also requires only bad faith registration or use, not bad faith registration and use.
That said, how the panel came to its conclusion in this case is really strange. Basically, the respondent in the case Massive Networks Pty Ltd, deregistered as a company in 2010. The panel thus rules that it can’t have any rights or legitimate interests in the domain:
It cannot therefore hold property such as the registration of a domain name. The Panel concludes that it cannot have or claim any rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name.
Then the panel states that the respondent in the case did not register or use the domain in bad faith. Nevertheless, someone is now using it in bad faith, the panelist decides:
However the current use of the disputed domain name cannot be use by the Respondent, which no longer exists. It must therefore be use by an unidentified person or company. The website to which the disputed domain names resolves directs a visitor to travel agency offers and products and appears to have no connection to the Respondent or anyone connected to it.
In that case isn’t the respondent in the case not who it should be?
Seems like perverted justice to me.
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Case filed in Arizona to halt transfer of domain name.
A Texas man has filed a suit for declaratory and injunctive relief to halt the transfer of ConnectedWorld.com, a domain name he lost in a recent UDRP decision.
In the suit (pdf), Jeffrey Smith claims he has been working on a social network for eldercare since 2008. When the domain name ConnectedWorld.com came up for auction last year, he paid $7,100 to acquire the domain name.
Earlier this year, Specialty Publishing Company filed a UDRP for the domain name. Specialty Publishing Company owns Connected World Magazine and runs a conference by the same name. The company won the UDRP case.
In his suit, Smith admits that he was aware of Connected World since he participated in one of its conferences and his employer advertised in the magazine. Yet he claims his purchase of the domain name was unrelated to this and was just for his eldercare business idea.
But Smith is going to face an uphill battle given the allegations made in the UDRP case against him.
According to the UDRP decision, the day after Smith acquired the domain name he wrote to Specialty Publishing Company stating “By the way – I had the opportunity to pick up the domain name [connectedworld.com] so I did. I didn’t have an agenda just saw it available and picked it up before someone else did.” That seems to fly in the face of his assertion that it was for his eldercare social network.
Further communications between the parties are even more damning. As written in the decision:
Respondent’s subsequent e-mails with the Complainant further support the inference that Respondent purchased and registered the domain name in bad faith. In several follow-up e-mails, Respondent informed Complainant that Respondent had been contacted by several people since Respondent bought the domain name (June 22, 2011 e-mail), that Respondent has sold domain names in the past (February 21, 2012 e-mail), that Respondent received a quarter of a million dollars for the sale of memorial.com (February 21, 2012), and that “Almost everything is for sale, we are just negotiating a price” (February 21, 2012).
If Smith is in the wrong, he could be opening himself up to paying a bigger penalty than just losing the domain name.
(As a side note, it does appear that Smith sold Memorial.com to Kevin Ham’s Vertical Axis in 2006. I don’t recall seeing this sale reported. Although I wouldn’t consider the assertion in the UDRP that he sold it for $250,000 proof of the sales price, it seems reasonable.)
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Related posts:
- Unlike UDRP, Nominet doesn’t want your .uk disputes to go to court
Company that makes UDRP threat found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
“If you don’t sell me your domain for $2,000, I’ll file a UDRP against the domain name.”
That’s effectively what a United Kingdom company threatened against the owner of the domain name edgePOS.com, according to the findings of a recent UDRP decision.
John Henderson (Holdings) filed a UDRP complaint against Xiaodong Zhang of Austin, Texas, over the domain name. Zhang said he registered the domain name for a point of sale system before the complainant wanted to start using the term.
According to Zhang, the complainant communicated with him on March 19, 2012 to ask him to sell the Disputed Domain Name (again). Following the respondent’s refusal the complainant threatened to institute a UDRP if the Zhang did not agree to an “offer of $2000”.
Ouch.
Perhaps John Henderson Holdings should have read up on the UDRP before making this claim. Its subsequent filing apparently lacked any support that Zhang registered and used the domain in bad faith.
Panelist Alistair Payne found in Zhang’s favor and also found John Henderson Holdings guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
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Related posts:
- Coming Soon: File a UDRP Domain Name Dispute for $250
- Coming March 15: File a UDRP for 500 EUR
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