Jeopardy for Domain Name Case — No Double

Firms loses second attempt to acquire domain name GetMore.com through domain arbitration.

I was wrong.

In January of this year I wrote an article “Domain Arbitration Doesn’t ‘Get More’ Crazy Than This” regarding a UDRP case for the domain GetMore.com.

The title of the article was wrong, since this case just became even more crazy. The complainant, which lost the case, refiled a case with World Intellectual Property Organization claiming that it has purchased fresh evidence against the respondent. In other words, it attempted to try the respondent for the same alleged crime twice.

There was no crime to begin with. A Danish firm using GetMore.dk realized it also needed the .com and tried to swipe it from the owner via arbitration since the owner was asking “too much”. It failed.

The complainant failed in its second attempt, too. The arbitrator decided that the complainant hadn’t introduced any evidence in its second attempt that it could not have purchased ahead of its first filing. (The complainant has unlimited time to gather evidence ahead of filing a case, even though the respondent has only a short window.)

The additional evidence amounted to a prior blog post by the respondent saying he made money from domain names, and some sort of alleged connection between the respondent and a parking service. The arbitrator pointed out that this was immaterial as stated and ought to have been included in the original complaint.

The arbitrator also stated that if cases like this were allowed to proceed, then the UDRP system would be flooded with refiled cases. This would also require domain owners to spend lots of money defending cases over and over.

But here’s the rub: even though the arbitrator decided not to hear this case again, the domain owner still had to respond. I propose that refiled cases are first sent to an arbitrator that decides if they ought to be reheard ahead of sending the complaint to the respondent.