Another Reverse Domain Name Hijacking win — Telepathy gets
Legal waiver notice plays a role in decision.
Domain investor Nat Cohen’s Telepathy has successfully defended another one of its domain names in a UDRP and the complainant has been found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking.
Corporacion Empresarial Altra S.L., which owns the domain name AirZone.es, filed the UDRP against AirZone.com.
Telepathy registered the domain name in 1999 and the complainant made attempts to purchase the domain. Despite making offers over a decade ago, it just filed the UDRP this year.
It’s worth focusing on two things when analyzing this case.
First is the idea of a disclaimer of trademark rights when submitting an offer on a domain name.
Telepathy requests that people interested in buying its domain names submit their offers through SecuredOffers.com. When submitting an offer on that site, submitters check a box next to the statement:
By submitting this offer, I confirm that neither I, nor the organization on whose behalf I am acting (if applicable), claims a legal right to the domain listed above. I confirm that my use of this Service constitutes an express waiver of any applicable intellectual property rights to the domain name and I acknowledge that the domain name owner is relying on this waiver when electing to receive my offer and to engage in discussions regarding the potential purchase and sale of the domain name.
The UDRP panel hearing this case put a lot of emphasis on this. Keep in mind that this statement isn’t buried in some terms of service document. It’s an unchecked field on the submission form next to the full statement.
Second, why don’t complainants search for information regarding the domain name owner ahead of submitting a UDRP?
I’ve never understood why people file marginal cases against Frank Schilling. It’s just a way to waste legal resources.
The same goes for anyone filing a case against Telepathy. Nat Cohen knows UDRP inside and out. His lawyer on these cases, Zak Muscovitch, also knows what he is doing. If you get to a point you’re filing a UDRP against a Telepathy domain name, then you probably haven’t done your homework.
