RDNH Finding

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

French company TOBAM has been found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in a judgment here.

This is another one of those cases where the Complainant was less than forthcoming in providing the Panel with full disclosure:

2. The Complaint lacks candour in that it makes no mention of the communications between the parties via the Sedo website in 2011 – 2013 regarding purchase of the disputed domain name by the Complainant. Even if the Complainant had no "written evidence" of such communications, and even if it were unable to access the Sedo site to obtain such evidence (and the Complainant has not clearly stated that that was so), the Complainant should at the least have mentioned the exchanges. Whether or not the Complainant considered that these matters were directly relevant to bad faith, nonetheless the Complainant relied on its allegedly unanswered 2016 letter and email as evidence that the Respondent had provided false contact details and so the failure to mention the previous extensive communications conveyed the misleading impression that the Respondent was generally evasive and non-responsive. (For completeness, the Panel would add that it draws no conclusion from the Complainant's failure to refer to the Respondent's email of June 7, 2016, and the Panel accepts the Complainant's assertion that it never received it.)

This is another reason for keeping all communications relating to offers and enquiries. I always save emails to the cloud just in case I ever need to dig it up later.

 

[Scott.L]

Its interesting that the legal team for the plaintiff did not see the rights of the domain holder [registration predated the TM] and yet continued to play into this complaint, with the view to obtaining the domain name.

"Generally speaking, although a trademark can form a basis for a UDRP action under the first element irrespective of its date […], when a domain name is registered by the respondent before the complainant's relied-upon trademark right is shown to have been first established (whether on a registered or unregistered basis), the registration of the domain name would not have been in bad faith because the registrant could not have contemplated the complainant's then non-existent right."

 

[DomainNames]

Over the last year I have had numerous offers for a .com.au name. The offers all use generic sounding contact details no phone and not much detail, Gmail address etc.

I decided to do an IP address search on all the email offers and found out it was all coming from RP Data https://www.corelogic.com.au http://www.corelogic.com/ ( NYSE listed ) ...Why don't they just send a proper email and contact name to have a serious discussion or at least be taken as real? They surely have the money to not try such games.

I will hold onto the emails of course. You never know when you may need them but it really just wastes people's time to do this for large companies.

I understand people want a "deal" but it would cost them money having a staff member waste the time sending such made up gmail emails over and over again.

It doesn't look good for such a large company to do this.

 

[Cooper Mills DomainLawyer]

Over the last year I have had numerous offers for a .com.au name. The offers all use generic sounding contact details no phone and not much detail, Gmail address etc.

I decided to do an IP address search on all the email offers and found out it was all coming from RP Data https://www.corelogic.com.au http://www.corelogic.com/ ( NYSE listed ) ...Why don't they just send a proper email and contact name to have a serious discussion or at least be taken as real? They surely have the money to not try such games.

I will hold onto the emails of course. You never know when you may need them but it really just wastes people's time to do this for large companies.

I understand people want a "deal" but it would cost them money having a staff member waste the time sending such made up gmail emails over and over again.

It doesn't look good for such a large company to do this.

They do this because some people out there think because they are a large corporate they have unlimited money to buy domains. Having acted for clients on both sides of the fence, they do have limited budgets. One of my clients who is a well known brand once wanted to buy a domain, and their budget was $5000, I said what if we cant buy it, and their response was, we will use something like brandnameau.com or .com.au as we can hand register that and pay $50, and use the rest of the budget on Adwords or SEO.

I don't agree with them, because I think a valuable domain has a long term benefit and helps boost traffic - just pointing out how some of these people think.

 

[Scott.L]

[QUOTE="I don't agree with them, because I think a valuable domain has a long term benefit and helps boost traffic - just pointing out how some of these people think.[/QUOTE]

The difficulty is, How do you get SMB to see this digital "value" - especially if its campaign or product driven, and then, what if the keywords to the campaign or product are trademarked by trolls? I got stuck with a campaign, the keyword i wanted to use was Trademarked by a Troll who never used the keyword, so the campaign was abandoned due to the perceived legal risk and fees involved.

 

[findtim]

How do you get SMB to see this digital "value"

its bloody difficult, I've got MANY clients that have an advertising budget over 50K p/a but think $1k for a great name for a new venture in their vertical is overpriced.
good to see many RDNH's not sticking and once again the non-disclosure rears its head
tim

 

[DomainNames]

They do this because some people out there think because they are a large corporate they have unlimited money to buy domains. Having acted for clients on both sides of the fence, they do have limited budgets. One of my clients who is a well known brand once wanted to buy a domain, and their budget was $5000, I said what if we cant buy it, and their response was, we will use something like brandnameau.com or .com.au as we can hand register that and pay $50, and use the rest of the budget on Adwords or SEO.

I don't agree with them, because I think a valuable domain has a long term benefit and helps boost traffic - just pointing out how some of these people think.

I 100% understand what you are saying, like me I guess you may have advised the client to make an offer of $5k ( their budget) take it or leave it and state clearly they would pursue other options if not agreeable. No games or time wasted and they may or may not have succeeded.

No use offering $500 via a fake email and not getting anywhere if you have a $5k budget approved and available.

$5k can go fast on SEO and adwords... often there are still competitors out there clicking those adwords.. and that is just money down the drain.

The point is a record of all offers and try to see who they are from, even with an IP address trace in case the potential buyer tries a RDNH claim later. I have had 3 and I won all 3.

 

[DomainNames]

I should add one of those RDNH complainants also lost their Australian business registration, Trademark, was later folded in the USA and the CEO / Chairman I believe did some USA jail time.

"chairman and CEO XXXX XXXXX was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison Monday after a judge rejected a plea by his lawyers for a lighter sentence."
​

They where at one time a market leader listed on the US stock exchange.

This is why it is important to try and know sometimes who buyers are especially for sought after generic type names. They can try a lot of tricks and some nasty legal letters to get a name they want and in the end some of these RDNH complainants are found guilty in other maters also.