Gets stolen EHT.com domain returned through UDRP — John Berryhill

Panel orders domain name stolen in 2013 to be returned to previous owner.

Domain name attorney John Berryhill has successfully won the transfer of the domain name EHT.com for his client, in a rare case in which he acted on behalf of the complainant.

John Dilks has owned EHT.com since 1997. The domain name was apparently stolen from Dilks in late 2013, but he didn’t know this until just recently. That’s since the thief kept the nameservers posted to Dilks’ hosting while he transferred the domain name to various registrars.

UDRP is frequently used to recover stolen domain names. The policy wasn’t created for it, but as long as the complainant can prove all three elements of the policy, they can recover the domain name.

In many cases, the tricky part is showing some sort of trademark rights in the name. Berryhill showed these here. When it comes to bad faith, panelist Houston Putnam Lowry wrote:

Frankly, this Panel has never seen this set of facts ahead of. Respondent’s hijacking of a domain name in this manner ought to constitute per se bad faith registration and use of the domain name, even if the nameservers remain the same. The Panel cannot conceive how such actions would ever constitute anything but bad faith. Domain name owners ought to be vigilant to avoid such hijackings in the future.

Eht.com