Of 2010? Testosterone.com Awarded to Complainant — Worst UDRP
All I can say is “wow”.
We have a fresh candidate for worst UDRP decision of 2010: Testosterone.com.
National Arbitration Forum panelist Fernando Triana Esq. awarded the domain name to Monsterops, LLC, despite the respondent having registered the generic name three years prior to Monsterops’ using the trademark in commerce. The registrant of the domain name registered it way back in 1995, yet somehow Monsterops was able to snag this generic from him 16 years later.
The entire decision is a joke. Panelist Triana considers the issue that the domain was registered two years prior to Monsterops’ filing the trademark application. (The trademark wasn’t even used in commerce until 1998, three years following the domain name was register, and wasn’t granted until 2004, as stated by the decision.) But Triana only considered this in the first section of UDRP — whether or not the domain was confusingly similar to a trademark held by the complainant.
The panelist was correct to dismiss this issue for the first section, since the first section does not address timelines. Still, Triana then completely ignores the date in deciding if the domain name was registered in bad faith!
Even if the trademark were registered ahead of the domain name, there’s no justification for awarding a generic domain name like this to the complainant.
This decision is an example of what’s wrong with UDRP. If you ever wonder why firms file “long shot” UDRP cases, it’s since they know they can occasionally get lucky like this. The downside of losing a case as a complainant is just your legal and filing costs.
