Sarid win UDRP for Kosmos.com — Berryhill and

French firm wanted the .com to go with its .fr domain name.

John Berryhill has successfully defended the domain name Kosmos.com on behalf of Sahar Sarid’s firm Ashanti PLC.

Complainant Kosmos SAS is an education technology firm that uses the domain name Kosmos.fr.

It incorporated on April 3, 1998. The domain name was registered the following day (not by Ashanti, which purchased the domain later).

The complainant never bothered to inquire regarding buying Kosmos.com until it was ready to enter the North American market in 2014. At that point, it tried to buy the domain name but was unhappy with the asking price. It told Ashanti’s broker that “We still maintain the offer and would be really happy if one day it holds your attention”.

But then I guess a lawyer took a look at it and suggested filing a UDRP. Kosmos’ lawyer must not have a good grasp on domain names, since the complaint has some silly arguments.

For example, it argued that Ashanti’s use of ClientTransferProhibited (registrar lock) was evidence of bad faith. I’m not sure how using a common security measure for a domain name is evidence of bad faith.

It also tried to argue that Kosmos isn’t a dictionary word. But the Complainant submitted evidence to the contrary in its own complaint. It submitted an interview from 2003 of one of its founders. In that interview, he stated that “kosmos” is a Greek word denoting the harmonious universe.

Oops.

The three-person panel found that the domain name was not registered in bad faith.

Kosmos.com UDRP