And John Berryhill team up to get RDNH decision — Frank Schilling

Firm files dispute for UDRP in bad faith.

Frank Schilling, with the help of attorney John Berryhill, has convinced a UDRP panel that AINS, INC is guilty of reverse domain name hijacking in a dispute over eCase.com.

AINS, Inc has a trademark for “ecase” for its software for workflow and case management. It claimed a first use in commerce date of 2009 on its trademark application.

Schilling purchased the domain name eCase.com in 2002, so the case had no chance of succeeding.

So AINS’ attorney Janice W. Housey of Symbus Law Group, LLC claimed that each time the domain was renewed the domain was a “renewal in bad faith”. It’s ridiculous, but she made another mistake that made it even more troublesome: she neglected to show that the domain was renewed following AINS got its trademark rights.

Making matters worse, it appears that an employee of AINS sent a misleading communication to Schilling in an effort to buy the domain. As stated by the case, AINS’ Director of Business Development and Vice President of Sales sent an inquiry that read:

“Due to today’s economy, I am starting a home business. I am interested in your domain name as it is a good fit for services I want to provide, and am able to propose $1,500 for the rights to the name. I can be reached via my home email . . .”

Berryhill noted that this is “a willfully false communication by interstate or international electronic means originating in the United States, for the purpose of obtaining a thing of value on false pretenses, i.e. “wire fraud” under the relevant federal criminal statute:18 USC § 1343.”.

It didn’t help that the attorney also sent a couple inquiries to Schilling’s firm without identifying herself.

The three person panel found against AINS and that AINS was guilty of filing its case under the policy in bad faith, i.e. reverse domain name hijacking.