Two more RDNH domain cases — Another day
Two more cybersquatting cases were filed in abuse of the UDRP.
It probably seems like I’ve been writing a lot of posts regarding reverse domain name hijacking lately. Hey, I don’t control the flow of unscrupulous firms filing bogus RDNH cases. I take them as they come.
Here are two more.
First up is Crestron Electronics, Inc, which filed a UDRP against a former partner for crestronasia.com, crestronasia.asia and creston.asia.
The domains are owned by Transtrade Hong Kong Co. Limited (formerly known as Crestron Asia Limited). As you can probably guess, these two firms used to be partners. It’s basically a case of a distributorship that went sour.
Panelist Tony Willoughby noted that the respondent clearly didn’t register the domains in bad faith when it registered the domains. Just since the relationship has ended doesn’t change the state of the relationship when the respondent registered the domains.
The second case was filed by Platterz Inc for the domain name platterz.com. Platterz owns the domain name Platterz.ca.
The firm was formed well following the registrant registered the domain name. The complainant tried to buy the domain name. When that failed, it filed the UDRP.
Intriguingly, respondent Andrew Melcher stated he has never sold or leased a domain name. Since he owns over 10,000, I wonder what he’s doing with these domains. Since he didn’t argue he is a domain investor, the panel didn’t find him to have a legitimate interest or rights in the domain.
Still, he clearly didn’t register the domain in bad faith well ahead of the complainant existed. The panel was miffed that Platterz cited a case in which bad faith was found when a domain was registered ahead of the complainant registered its trademark, since in that case (unlike the present one) the complainant had common law rights ahead of the registration.
