Shouldn’t have been filed — This UDRP

…or it certainly ought to have been withdrawn later.

The prior week, National Arbitration Forum published a decision for the domain openbots.com in favor of the domain owner. I think this case ought to have never been filed and, giving the most favorable read to the Complainant, ought to undoubtedly have been withdrawn following the response was received.

OpenBots, Inc., which uses openbots.ai, filed the dispute.

At the time it filed the dispute, openbots.com didn’t resolve. The Complainant stated it tried to reach out to the owner regarding the domain but didn’t hear back. And like nearly all domains these days, the domain also had Whois privacy by default.

So the Complainant was probably frustrated in its attempt to acquire the domain.

Still, OpenBots, Inc. is a relatively fresh firm. The trademark it relies upon in its complaint states a first use in commerce date of 2020. Openbots.com was registered in 2003. So the firm ought to have identified something to suggest that the domain has changed ownership since 2020.

Historical Whois records show that the domain has been at Namecheap under its Whois privacy since ahead of that date, and its nameservers haven’t changed during that period. I can’t find anything in historical records to indicate a change.

I think a Complainant’s law firm ought to at least make an effort to review historical records ahead of filing a case. Here, there’s nothing to suggest that the Complainant has rights predating the current owner’s registration of the domain, so the case was dead on arrival.

If you want to give the Complainant some leeway, it certainly ought to have withdrawn the case once the domain owner’s identity was revealed. As part of the post-GDPR UDRP process, National Arbitration Forum would have revealed this information to the Complainant and given it the opportunity to amend the case.

And if you want to give even more leeway, the firm ought to have withdrawn when the Respondent confirmed his ownership dating to 2003.

It doesn’t appear that the Respondent asked for reverse domain name hijacking, but I think panelist Douglas Isenberg ought to have considered it.

And, ought to there be changes to UDRP in the future, I think the intake ought to ask the Complainant to clearly state if it claims rights predating the domain registration.