Firm loses UDRP against 20-year-old-domain, but maybe is shouldn’t have.
Panel believes registrant registered domain name over 20 years ago. It didn’t.
German firm Softway AG has lost a UDRP it filed against the 20-year-old domain name Softway.com.
On the surface, it appears to be a particularly egregious case.
Although Softway AG claimed it’s been around since 1989, it didn’t set up a web presence until 2007, at which point it registered Softway.de.
It’s at that time that Softway AG started asking the owner of Softway.com if it would sell the domain name. The owner offered to sell it for $6,500.
Fast forward to 2014 and Softway decided to file a UDRP.
Based on the domain owner having registered the domain name over twenty years ago in 1993, Softway AG lost the case.
Apparently Softway’s lawyers don’t know how to use DomainTools’ historical whois tool. If they did, they would have known that the current registrant in India was not the registrant in 1993. The domain has gone through multiple owners counting a Network Solutions drop (and thus direct transfer retaining the original registration date).
The current owner didn’t acquire the domain until at least late 2007 or early 2008. At that point, following Softway started using Softway.de, it was in the hands of a group in India. Since then it has been registered to various groups/privacy services based in India.
Perhaps Softway AG still loses with the fresh dates. But presenting the correct dates to the panel (an issue the respondent clearly didn’t want to clear up) would have made a big difference.
