Out this argument in a UDRP — Wow, check

Just when you think you’ve seen them all…

I’ve seen a lot of spurious arguments in UDRP cases, and one from a case published this stretch lands in my top 5.

McCoy & Partners B.V., an SAP consulting firm, filed a UDRP against McCoy.com. The firm uses mccoy-partners.com and wanted to upgrade its domain.

Without even reading the case details, you can tell this would be a difficult case to win. McCoy is a common surname, so there would have to be some sort of exceptional direct targeting involved to win the UDRP.

It seems that the Complainant filed the case since it couldn’t get a response when it inquired regarding the domain. So it argued that this failure to respond to its overtures was some sort of violation of the domain registration agreement! Here’s how this argument was summarized in the case decision:

The Respondent ignores all contact attempts. The failure of the Respondent to respond to communications violates the Respondent’s obligation in its domain name registration agreement to regularly monitor emails. Under the registration agreement, a domain owner is liable to lose its domain name if it does not respond to emails relating thereto.

The lack of response from the Respondent is analogous to the failure of a respondent to respond to a UDRP complaint and is indicative a lack of legitimate interest on the part of the Respondent.

Wow.

The domain owner didn’t respond to the dispute but still (unsurprisingly) won. Panelist Adam Taylor noted that the domain was registered in 2001, well ahead of the Complainant existed. Taylor also pointed out that, even if the domain owner purchased the domain later, the fact that it’s a popular surname would have made this case difficult to win.

AKD N.V. represented the Complainant.