#1 – Most panelists treat domains as intellectual property and not personal property… registering and parking a domain or putting up a “for sale” sign on it doesn’t create an intellectual property right;

#2 It really doesn’t matter how generic a domain might be… because the generic terms just mean that there are a lot of people who can claim Intellectual Property rights to the domain. But if the owner don’t use it, then they aren’t included in that group of people.

#3 For any alternative extensions registered and not used (or worse… parked) where the .com is already registered, the complainant has a pretty good argument that the assumption should be the registrant knew the .com was already registered and thus COULD IN FACT ANTICIPATE a future trademark right even if one didn’t exist at the time of registration; and

#4 – Panelists can be convinced that each renewal counts as a new registration.

I think my win here really just boiled down to the Greenberg Traurig lawyers intentionally fudging the dates to make it appear to be a slamdunk case rather than a freethrow shot. They pissed off the panelist because he knew it would have gone unnoticed if I didn’t make that a major part of my response. So he hit them with the penalty.

Interestingly enough, I’m now currently defending an ACPA action in the 9th District here in Vegas for a different domain name that was coincidentally brought by Greenberg Traurig in December 2009. The domain had been registered in June 2004, expired in June 2009 and registered by Greenberg Traurig for their client in September 2009. I got a demand letter for five figures in December and when I responded with just two words, one of which was an expletive… well, they filed their lawsuit the next day.

Their new complaint fudged the facts in this case even worse than in the PokerHost UDRP because they claimed that I still own the domain and requested a transfer injunction (as well as the $100k in statutory damages). I think they must be too used to getting default judgments and settlements to actually worry about facts. Will be interesting to see how the judge ends up ruling on my motion to dismiss.

Both of these cases make me want to go take the bar just so I can pro bono defend every domainer that GTLaw tries to bully into submission.

And let’s call what Poker Host really did in their illegal attempt to steal his .net…they lied.