Wins RDNH in cybersquatting dispute — Domaining.com owner

Francois Carrillo successfully defended his valuable nuro.com domain with help of attorney John Berryhill.

Francois Carrillo, owner of the popular domain news aggregator Domaining.com, has successfully defended (pdf) his domain name nuro.com in a UDRP. The Complainant was also found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

Canadian healthcare firm NURO Corp. filed the UDRP. The firm was incorporated in 2017. Carrillo purchased the domain name in 2015, so this case was dead on arrival on the issue of bad faith.

The panel found that the domain was not registered and used in bad faith. Oddly, it did not find rights or legitimate interests for Carrillo, which I think was a mistake. But the most notable thing is that the panel decided the overall case correctly and also found NURO Corp. guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.

Many panels are hesitant to find a Complainant that is not represented by outside counsel to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking. But in this case, it was clear that the Complainant had access to outside counsel when filing its case.

The panel found reverse domain name hijacking since the Complainant filed the case even though the facts demonstrated the complainant knew it could not succeed on the issue of bad faith registration and use.

John Berryhill represented Carrillo.