Lawyer’s View of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking — A Domain
Domain attorney Karen Bernstein discussses (lack of) reverse domain name hijacking findings.
Earlier today Reglike published a guest article by The Hon. Neil Brown, a domain arbitrator, regarding how he approaches reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) decisions.
The prior week I caught up with Fresh York domain attorney Karen Bernstein to discuss RDNH.
Bernstein has reason to be frustrated regarding domain disputes and the lack of RDNH decisions. She was the respondent’s representative in the case of CheapAutosInsurance.com, which DNW covered last month. In this case, an auto insurance firm with a federal trademark for “Cheap Auto Insurance” unsuccessfully tried to get the domain as an upgrade to its cheap-auto-insurance.com domain name. The complainants’ actions in the case were particularly egregious.
“They did a classic data dump,” stated Bernstein. “In the initial papers, they attached hundreds of snapshots of their web site dating back to 1998.” The complainant then submitted an additional submission of 800 pages. It included copies of insurance licenses in many states, none of which referred to “Cheap Auto Insurance”.
The complainant lost this case and one for CheapAutoInsurance.com (singular ‘autos’), but in neither case did the panels find it guilty of RDNH.
Bernstein stated that firms believe that, just since they have trademarks, they can “swoop in and get these domain names”. She believes that complainants ought to pay a penalty if found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking. “There ought to be some sort of recourse,” she stated. “I think it ought to be attorney’s fees and arbitration fees. There has to be some sort of deterrent to stop the filing of these frivolous cases.”
Although many people would like to see complainants that abuse the process pay a fine, the first struggle is getting arbitrators to find complainants guilty of RDNH in the first place.
