Jason B. Schaeffer, ESQwire.com
ESQwire achieved a remarkable feat in the month of July: in 30 days, five UDRP cases were successfully defended by the domainer-friendly law firm.
What we have here, are 5 cases involving generic dictionary word domains, two word domains, “e” generic word domains and a four letter domain.
That’s almost like a typical variety of domains owned by the average domain investor, who is often nervous about facing unforeseen litigation against their assets.
So what are the lessons delivered by these successful wins for the Respondents?
In the case of eWomen.com there was no RDNH finding, most likely because the Respondent used the domain on a zero click advertising platform, that delivered faux malware alert ads.
This approach is completely unacceptable.
Domain investors must clean up their domain portfolios and refrain from putting valuable domains at risk.
Think about it: is the $100 – $200 /month parking revenue worth the UDRP, as in this case? The eWomen.com UDRP was won on the finding that the Respondent’s rights predate the Complainant’s in the EWOMEN trademark.
Naturally, the ESQwire attorneys continued to deliver a strong game, and in the case of eRenter.com the domain remained with the Respondent, Vertical Axis. On top of that, a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking was delivered.
The UDRP case of Unbiased.com was a classic assault on a generic domain, with a registration that predated that of the Complainant’s trademark by several years.
Moving onto GSUS.com, a four letter domain name, managed by Vertical Axis since 2002; the holders of the G-SUS mark attempted to raise similarity of the domain to their mark. However, GSUS.com predates the mark’s registration and in such an event there is no evidence on bad faith on behalf of the Respondent.
The biggest lesson was saved for last, and it involves the case of BabyBanana.com.
In this UDRP, as pointed out by ESQwire, Paragraph 2 of the Policy was successfully fought, and the Panel declared that subsequent renewals of a domain by the same registrant constitute extensions of their investment – not a new registration:
“The Panel rejects this argument and finds that renewal of a disputed domain name by the original owner of the domain name is irrelevant to a Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii) analysis. There is no evidence that the renewal of the domain name was anything more than protecting an existing investment.”
In all five UDRP cases successfully defended by ESQwire, the common denominator appears to be the age of the domains.
Aged domains are very often targeted by “later comers”, who utilize trademarks in their filings, despite the good faith registration and generic nature of these domains. In the most obvious cases, a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) is the ultimate trophy for the Respondent, and their defense attorneys.
Definitely a set of successfully defended UDRP cases, that will be added to the ever-expanding ESQwire.com portfolio.
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