One simple step save you in a UDRP? — Can this

A disclaimer on a domain offer page could help you defend against a UDRP.

There was a panel on domain name law and the UDRP during the prior week’s TRAFFIC conference.

Bill Sweetman of Name Ninja provided some tips on how to mitigate the risk of losing a domain in a UDRP. One suggestion was to add a disclaimer to a domain offer page that states the submitter claims no legal right to the domain it’s making an offer on.

Nat Cohen of Telepathy was also on the panel.

Fast forward a few days and there’s a UDRP case involving Nat Cohen in which he put up that exact defense: that the complainant had expressly agreed to it had no legal right to the domain when it submitted two offers for it.

Here’s part of Telepathy’s defense for LGG.com:

In both cases the Complainant disclaimed legal rights to the Disputed Domain by confirming the following statement that accompanied both offers:

“By submitting this offer, I confirm that neither I, nor my organization, claims a legal right to the registration of the domain listed above. If I am inquiring on behalf of another entity, I confirm that this entity does not claim a legal right to the registration of the domain listed above and that I am authorized by such entity to make this representation.”

The offers were made on SecuredOffers.com.

Now, there were a lot of reasons Telepathy successfully defended the LGG.com domain name. The case was a joke.

But in a more marginal case, this disclaimer may have been helpful. That stated, I haven’t seen a UDRP panel make a ruling based on such a disclaimer. I have no idea what sort of legal weight it carries.

It ought to be common sense to a panel that if a firm offers $10,000 for a domain name, it must feel that the domain owner has rights to it. But common sense doesn’t always prevail.

What do you think? Could a disclaimer like this be helpful?