Dutch domain investor, Tim Schoon, is no stranger to domain conferences, and he attended NamesCon 2016 along with business partner, Swedish domain investor Sebastian Kleveros.
For years, the active domainer has been focusing on short domains, primarily of the LLL .com and LLLL .com kind.
Sebastian Kleveros, on the left and business partner Tim Schoon in the white sweater, during NamesCon 2016.
Schoon operates from PEJ.com and he’s considered by many as the “godfather” of “Chip” domain names: four letter combinations that exclude vowels and the letter ‘V.’
Schoon coined the term “chips” as a reference to China and the domains’ ability to be cashed in.
A recent UDRP involving the acquisition of a portfolio of LLLL .com domains by Tim Schoon and his partner Sebastian Kleveros, was filed against the previous owner of one of them, NVRT.com.
Schoon and Kleveros acquired the domain portfolio through Escrow.com, and were in the process of transferring the domains to Uniregistry, when they received a message that NVRT.com was being blocked.
According to the UDRP:
“Complainant has filed suit against Maya Mark Inc., Ted Tobson, and <nvrt.com> in United States District Court for the District of Nevada. Maya Mark Inc., and Ted Tobson are the prior registrants and owners of the <nvrt.com> domain name according to Complainant. While the Respondent is neither Maya Mark Inc., or Ted Tobson, Complainant’s suit was also brought against the domain <nvrt.com> under 15 U.S.C §1125(d). “
According to the defense, delivered by attorney John Berryhill, Tim Schoon and Sebastian Kleveros were at no point aware of the proceedings, or of any claimed marks by the Complainant.
A three member panel at the WIPO delivered a majority decision; two out of the three panelists agreed that there was no incident of “cyberflight” – an attempt to avoid the lockdown of a domain that’s pending litigation by transferring it to another entity and/or registrar. The domain was ordered to remain in the possession of Tim Schoon and Sebastian Kleveros.
For the full text of the UDRP for the domain NVRT.com click here.
