Don't mess with Texas, y'all!
The Texas Department of Transportation is proud of the service it offers to the community of Texas.
With a budget approaching that of a small Caribbean nation, the TXDOT employees are on the lookout for anyone abusing their mark.
So they went after the domain txdot.net – registered two years ago, according to top WHOIS tool, DomainTools – and won the case, at the National Arbitration Forum.
The respondent, Lease Domains of Illinois, did not formally respond but instead emailed NAF, waiving a virtual white flag, that stated:
“Can this domain please be IMMEDIATELY transferred to the Complainant?”
Since there was no formal response, the domain was transferred due to the Registrant ‘defaulting’. This seems to be a different process from the WIPO, where the respondent’s lack of response does not necessitate a defaulting of the case on behalf of the complainant.
Meanwhile, txdot.com and txdot.org are not owned by the Texas Department of Transportation, that owns the .info, .biz and .us and points them all to txdot.gov
Would this UDRP decision prepare the ground for an attempt to wrestle the .com?
