Los Angeles attorney who practices trademark law found guilty of abusing UDRP proceedings.

A three person World Intellectual Property Organization panel has found an intellectual property lawyer guilty of attempting to engage in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking and bringing a UDRP complaint in bad faith in abuse of the administrative proceeding.

Los Angeles lawyer Frank Michael Weyer filed the case against the owner of iShades.com.

The owner of iShades.com registered the domain four years before Weyer filed an intent-to-use trademark application for iShades, and more than five years before the first use date on the trademark application.

Upon reading the decision, you’ll wonder if Weyer actually read the rules about UDRPs. The panel ruled that he failed to make even a prima facie showing that the respondent lacked rights or legitimate interests in the domain.

Complainant merely includes the conclusory assertion, unsupported by any facts, evidence, or argument, that Respondent lacks legitimate rights in the disputed domain name. The remaining assertions of the Complaint (reproduced in Section 5.A.2 and 5.A.3 above) relate to the element of bad faith—and are equally unsupported.

In contrast, Respondent provided documentary evidence that establishes that it acquired the disputed domain name ishades.com several years before Complainant sought and obtained his trademark registration. Respondent’s documentary evidence is hardly obscure—the date Respondent acquired the disputed domain name ishades.com is found in the WhoIs record and the date that Complainant acquired its trademark rights is found in the U.S. Trademark Office database. Had he not actually known these facts, Complainant could have easily discovered them with minimal due diligence.

The Panel concludes that these facts were in all likelihood known to Complainant at the time he filed the Complaint and that the Complaint itself is frivolous.

The WIPO panel also believed that Meyer “materially mischaracterized” communications between Meyer and the domain owner regarding acquiring the domain name. It also determined:

The allegations of the Complaint were unsupported by documentary evidence, despite the fact that such evidence exists, could have been discovered after a few minutes of Internet research or would have been in Complainant’s possession. This includes such basic evidence as a copy of the trademark registration upon which the Complaint is based and copies of the communications between the parties.

The respondent was represented by John Berryhill.

Microsoft’s big product launch followed by a flurry of domain registration activity.

Yesterday Microsoft announced its latest video game console called XBox One.

Immediately, cybersquatters went to work.

Over 1,000 XBox One related domain names were registered in .com alone yesterday. To be sure, some of those registrations were by Microsoft itself. But the vast majority were by other parties hoping to capitalize on the latest video game system in the XBox franchise.

Some will park the domains, others will create fan sites, and of course others will be used for scams.

People registered a number of domains related to the console itself, as well as popular games that will come to the XBox, such as XBox1Halo.com and CallofDutyXBoxOne.com.

The owner of EvilControllers.com, a site that sells modified game controllers, registered 13 domains related to mods including XBox1ModdedController.com, XBoxOneModz.com, and XBox1RapidFire.com.

Where do you want to buy your XBox One? A North Carolina man registered 18 domains in the format of XBoxOne-StoreName, such as XBoxOne-Kmart.com, XBoxOne-Amazon.com, and XBoxOne-BestBuy.com.

One person is even betting the next XBox console will be called XBox Two. That doesn’t make much sense to me, but a New Hampshire man registered 17 domains including XBoxTwoRumors.com and FreeXBoxTwo.com.

When the latest XBox service is inevitably hacked, someone using a whois proxy service is already prepared with XBoxOneHacked.com.

Cybersquatters are a creative bunch.

(Thanks Lean Domain Search for your help.)

Tags: xbox one

Eric Borgos on why he’s selling domains, help the tornado victims, and a “cool” rebranding.

Here are a few domain stories I read today that I think are worth reading.

Eric Borgos has published an interesting perspective about 10 Reasons Why I Am Eager To Sell My Domains. Last year Borgos’ company had sales of $1.25 million, and domain sales were the company’s largest source of income.

Elliot Silver, DomainBoardroom.com, and Escrow.com have teamed up for a charity auction to benefit Oklahoma tornado victims. All proceeds will go to the Red Cross in Oklahoma City. Items in the auction include domain names as well as an SEO audit by Bill Hartzer, a gift certificate to Bobbleheads.com, and a guest post on ElliotsBlog. Bidding takes place via comments on the blog post, so Elliot is going to have fun keeping track of this one.

Kudos to Domain Advisors for rebranding as Igloo.com. Whenever I saw an email or tweet from Domain Advisors, I had to think about who was behind the company. Domain Advisors or Domain Holdings? If Domain Holdings, which of the two companies named that? Or is it one of the other many companies with Domain + some common term? Igloo.com is memorable and shows that the company “gets” domains.

Tags: domain advisors, domainboardroom, elliot silver, eric borgos, escrow.com, igloo.com

Board passes resolution that might delay certain new TLDs and approves a new UDRP provider.

While most of us were hanging with our families or on the golf course this weekend, ICANN’s board was approving a number of resolutions that could have a big affect on some parts of the domain name industry. Here’s what the board decided:

Some new TLDs may be delayed or rejected based on internal name conflicts. ICANN is going to further investigate the potential for security issues related to certain applied-for new TLDs and internally use domains such as .home. I would expect, at minimum, a delay on certain domain names.

There’s a new UDRP provider. Add Arab Center for Dispute Resolution to the list of approved UDRP providers. No, they won’t have to sign a contract, which means they’ll have some flexibility in changing their supplemental rules. Czech Arbitration Court, for example, adjusted its supplemental rules to allow a low cost UDRP option.

Approval of the FY 2014 budget will be late. ICANN’s 2014 fiscal year begins in June, but the budget won’t be approved until the July meeting in Durban. There’s also an open comment period for the fiscal plan right now. As a result, ICANN will go ahead with the proposed budget come June 1, and then approve it later.

Pack your bags for Los Angeles. The third ICANN meeting of 2014 will be October 12-16 in Los Angeles, where ICANN’s headquarters are located. (TRAFFIC organizers should take note when planning their fall conference next year.)

Fadi got his bonus, and something else happened… New ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade will get his second trimester of FY13 at-risk bonus. The board also approved a confidential resolution related to “personnel or employment matters”.

…and half believe they’ve lost business as a result.

.Co released some new research this morning regarding small businesses and domain names.

The research was carried out by Wakefield Research and asked questions about domain names to companies with 100 or fewer employees. Here are some of the interesting take-aways:

- 45% of small business owners don’t have a website or blog for their company. (That spells opportunity, my friends.)
- 49% of those with a site or blog are not completely satisfied with their domain name
- 55% of the small businesses with a site or blog believe they have lost business as a result of not getting their first choice of domain
- 52% would change their domain name if they had the opportunity to
- 63% of small business owners fail to consider the top level domain when selecting a second level domain
- 29% of small business owners says they don’t know what a “domain extension” is, and about 2 in 5 of those that say they know are actually incorrect. (If they asked about “top level domains”, I assume the number that would know what they are would be much lower.)
- 63% fail to consider the length when choosing a domain
- 57% said choosing a domain for their business was harder than naming their baby

Here’s the results presentation.