“UDRP Veterans” defend domain name
Panel states “UDRP Veterans” know what they’re doing.
Garry Chernoff of NetIncome Ventures and domain attorney John Berryhill teamed up to successfully defend the domain name Hennessey.com in a UDRP.
There are a couple interesting things regarding this case:
1. If I see a UDRP and the complainant is not who I would have thought it would be, that’s a pretty good sign that the complaint will fail.
In this case, when I saw the domain Hennessey.com, I assumed the complainant was cognac maker Hennessy.
But the complainant is actually the firm behind Hennessey Performance Engineering, which soups up sports cars.
2. Hennessey argued that Chernoff and Berryhill were “UDRP veterans” that “seem to have figured out various ways in which they can squat on domains without being susceptible to a finding of bad faith or illegitimate use” and asked the panel to take a deeper look.
The three person panel retorted this notion that the two have found ways to sidestep the behavior UDRP was created to stop:
As the Complainant notes, the Respondent, and its attorney, appear to be capable UDRP veterans. As stated by the Complainant, the Respondent has engaged in the exact kind of behavior that the UDRP was meant to remedy and deter. The Panel disagrees.
The equivalent of the legislative history of the UDRP can be found at:
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/processes/process1/note/index.html
No. 115 of that note states:
A uniform administrative procedure for the cancellation of bad faith domain names registered in deliberate abuse of trademark rights ought to be available in all open gTLDs.
No. 160 states:
It is considered that concerns regarding the mandatory nature of the procedure can be greatly alleviated, if not removed entirely, by confining the scope of the procedure to abusive registrations or cybersquatting, ..
No. 171 goes on to define the conditions for abusive registration, which are those found in the UDRP.
Thus, the UDRP must be applied narrowly, on the basis of strict reading of its elements. For the reasons given above, the Panel holds that the UDRP was not meant to remedy the situation concerning the present case.
The panelists were Richard Hill, Sir Ian Barker, and Honorable James A. Carmody — a team of panelist which would definitely qualify as veteran as well.
That’s part of the reason you ought to hire a domain name specialist as your attorney when you bring a UDRP case.
Hennessey will have to stick with its HennesseyPerformance.com domain.
