A UDRP win…as the respondent — Gleissner gets

Finding himself on the defense will help respondents in his own UDRPs.

Michael Gleissner’s firms’ failed attempts to acquire domain names through UDRP are well-documented. Yet he recently found himself on the opposite side of the table.

KGP Telecommunications, Inc. filed a UDRP against his domain name KGP.com.

Gleissner purchased the domain name in 2010. Earlier this year he transferred the domain name to a fresh firm he set up in the UK called KGP International Limited.

A three-person National Arbitration Forum panel correctly denied the UDRP and ruled that the three-letter domain name was not registered in bad faith.

But now that one of Gleissner’s firms has had to defend a UDRP, he has given additional tools to respondents to use in his own UDRP filings.

For example, one of the defenses in the KGP.com UDRP was the doctrine of laches. This is the idea that a claim ought to be time-barred.

Some panels have found laches to be relevant while others haven’t. But now anyone on the defense to a UDRP filed by a Gleissner-affiliated firm that registered the domain a long time ago can say “Hey, this person thinks laches ought to apply to a domain registered 6 years ago.”

You can read the full KGP.com decision here.