UDRP has been denied.
An Indian company took the owners of AsiaNet.com and AsiaNet.net to the WIPO, attempting to wrestle them away via the UDRP process.
Asianet Satellite Communications Limited of Thiruvananthapuram, India, failed at both attempts.
The .net owner and Respondent in that case, is Future Media Architects.
Elequa’s company did not respond to the UDRP, and yet, Adam Taylor, sole panelist at the WIPO, delivered a finding of no transfer.
AsiaNet.net was registered in 1994, and the panelist stated the obvious:
“First, the Complainant makes a number of conclusory allegations about the alleged extent of its reputation and the consequent likelihood that the Respondent set out to “usurp” the Complainant’s rights. But it makes no comment about the fact that the registration date of the disputed domain name is October 12, 1994, whereas the Complainant had only launched its business some two years earlier in 1992. The Complainant does not suggest that the Respondent may have only acquired the disputed domain name more recently and so it is presumably proceeding on the basis (less favourable to it) that the Respondent was the first registrant of the disputed domain name. Yet the Complainant has provided no evidence of any activity or reputation preceding the registration date of the disputed domain name on October 12, 1994, other than what appear to be some photographs of an inauguration event for the “Asianet Mayalayam Channel” on August 30, 1993.”
In the case of AsiaNet.com, the domain was registered in 1997.
Mr. Adam Taylor was once again the panelist in that separate UDRP case, and the Respondent did respond:
The Respondent registered the disputed domain name along with other domain names including <laonet.com> and <nethighway.com> (both registered in1996), <vietnet.com> (1997) and <ethai.com> (1998).
The disputed domain name was not registered and used in bad faith. Prior to receiving the Complaint, the Respondent had never heard of the Complainant or the Malayalam language. Nor is there any reasonable basis upon which he should have known of their existence.
At the time of registration of the disputed domain name, Internet search was more restricted than today. Wikipedia, the major source of readily available information about the Complainant, did not even exist then.
That case was dismissed as well, with a finding of no transfer.
Here’s the link to the AsiaNet.com decision and the AsiaNet.net one – owned by Future Media Architects.
