Most UDRPs are decided for the Complainant, but not this one.
In a recent UDRP decision at the National Arbitration Forum, the case against the domain name NaturallyBorn.com was brought by the owners of the .net.
Complainant Amy Phillips, operates a Question/Answer type web site, at NaturallyBorn.net and owns a registered trademark since Sept. 2012, for “naturally born.”
The respondent was the registrar, NameCheap.com, although WHOIS information shows a “Michael Marohn” as its registrant, who operates an active blog on the domain; the latter was registered a full two years before the Complainant’s trademark.
At some point, however, he offered to sell the domain to the Complainant for the very reasonable sum of $2,000 dollars.
The three member panel found that the Complainant has no legitimate rights to NaturallyBorn.com, as the Respondent’s registration and use of the domain was not in bad faith.
This UDRP, became yet another notch on attorney John Berryhill‘s belt of successful cases; Berryhill was representing the Respondent.
Read the full text is here.
This post is 100% true!
Hard to understand how the complainant turned down a 100% chance to own the domain name for $2000 and opted instead to spend $1500 on a UDRP (or whatever it costs to lodge one at NAF) that was never a guaranteed win.
fizz – Thank you for using common sense! Apparently, that’s a rare commodity these days. 😀
Hard to understand the logic in filing this case.
Kassey – Probably lack of legal representation for the Complainant; she seems to have filed the case by herself.
She was represented by an attorney, but for some reason they aren’t listed in the complaint. Maybe it is because the attorney was real estate and not intellectual property?
Jennifer – Thank you for clarifying. Congratulations for prevailing in this obvious case; John Berryhill is a very smart attorney as well.