Arbitrators Define DeepThroat.com

Arbitration panel finds in favor of domain registrant in DeepThroat.com case.

“Honey, I’m just doing some homework for a legal case I’m working on.”

That’s what the three panelists in a recent UDRP arbitration through National Arbitration Forum must have told their spouses as they decided the fate of DeepThroat.com. The panel found in favor of the domain owner, who was represented by John Berryhill.

The complainant, Arrow Productions, owns the rights to the famous 1972 adult film of the same name. The respondent claimed, and the panel agreed, that “Deep Throat” has a connotation of, ahem, a “specific sexual act involving the human throat”, not just the movie. Of course it was also the code name given for the informant in the Watergate scandal.

You have to enjoy when law gets applied to adult entertainment. Here’s my favorite line from the ruling:

“Respondent uses the disputed domain name to direct Internet users to goods or services that relate neither “deeply to the throat” (i.e., per the simple definition of the words)…”

Indeed.

But the panel ultimately decided that the domain owner can keep the domain since it wasn’t registered or used in bad faith. The domain owner bought the domain in a portfolio for regarding $5 million in 2005 following the production firm filed the trademark. Still, the domain was originally registered in 1997. The panel figured that, given the sizable purchase price, it’s plausible that the domain owner researched for trademarks a number of months ahead of the actual purchase (and ahead of the trademark was filed.)