Content on popular domain forum cited as evidence of bad faith.
Domain name forum NamePros was cited in the recently decided arbitration case for ISO.mobi at World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
According to the complainant, International Organization for Standardization ISO, the owner of ISO.mobi offered some of ISO’s other trademarks in domain names for sale:
An offer to sell the disputed domain name was made on the website “www.namepros.comâ€. While the disputed domain name was not actually listed, other potential domain names including Complainant’s mark were listed and the text immediately following says “buy these and moreâ€.
I just searched NamePros and could not find the thread ISO referred to. I only found the signature of one user offering generic domains such as ISO.mobi, RSS.mobi, and Ranch.mobi for sale.
The rest of the details on the ISO.mobi case are interesting, too. International Organization for Standardization, a well-known quasi-governmental organization, originally owned ISO.mobi but let it expire. The new owner picked it up as an expired domain, and doesn’t appear to have hosted ads on it related to ISO. Instead, the owner put up a crude online matchmaking web site. Shortly after receiving an email from ISO, the owner also registered other domains he deemed related to his acronym of ISO: “I SEEK OTHERS”. The arbitrator believed that the registration of these domains after receiving correspondence showed the respondent had something to hide.
Interestingly, the panel also cited the fact that the respondent hand-picked the domain name for registration, as opposed to using “automated methods”, as further evidence that the respondent registered the domain in bad faith. This is interesting because I’ve rarely seen the “automated methods” defense hold up.
You can review the entire decision on WIPO’s web site.
Ricardo says
The biggest mistake the respondent made was not using an IP lawyer. The respondent got rolled over by the panelist.
Tim says
ISO should be ashamed at the lack of standards applied to this decision.
concerned says
Apparently the complainant has their hand so far up the arbitrators ass the arbitrator sided with the ISO bandits.
Hand picked after a drop, no related information on the website to International Organization for Standardization. A dating site that has nothing to do with the International Organization for Standardization. Those ISO people are idiots for letting it expire and the new owner is innocent of any wrongdoing. He probably regg’ed the other domains to protect his new domain. Something ISO should have done. This is a very bad precedent for domain owners. Get ready this is the calm before the storm. More and more companies are realizing they let premium internet real-estate lapse or forgot to register it in the first place and are using lawyers and inept arbitrators to steal them from rightful owners.
Brave New World, Not.
Cheers.
ps.s. my biggest concern is parking companies that feed trademark ads to sites that give the complainant ammunition to steal the domains. The parking company that feeds the questionable ads should be held accountable for these potential problems for domain owners.
It may be time to remove all of your domains from parking systems and develop one at a time while you feed all of the rest to your developed domains. ???
ParkingFirm.com says
Poor decision WIPO. Respondent got ripped IMO !!
Best
–
Jay M
ParkingFirm.com
fred says
The only good news for the respondent is that ISO.mobi is worthless domain. I wouldn’t even pay reg fee for it (seriously).
AllKindsOfThings says
i agree that letting a three terre acronym domain expire that reflects your true organisation name would qualifies for being anywhere near to smart. I don’t agree that just stepping in an picking it – no matter by which metg in this business you should know which risks you can take and which you better don’t. Anyone here intersted to pick cocacola.mobi when its expired? No – well, in fact i didn’t think so, as it is clear that this thing will be subject to colcal cola IP-lawyers like there is no tomorrow. In case of a well established global trademark / organisational name picking can typically not be really done in a totally innocent way.
@fred: BTW litrerally ook at nokia.mobi (just relaunched) and you see a precendent of a truely developed dotMobi site with lmillions of MOBILE targeted finely analysed hits – every single month.
Please also note that a Gartner Group Analyst recently changed their about creating mobile targeted content, in that dotMobi’s http://deviceatlas.com was positively noted as a good tool driving the development forward into the right direction and overcoming what he named “PC legacy imperialism”. He complained that he – using a mobile – is in the majority of users who all suffer from the stubbornness of content creating / transcoder vendors / first generation internet folks who ignorantly insist that everything must have a PC desktop like user experience, just becasue that the only thing THEY started developing for – totally ignoring that this doesn’t at all make sense in so many cases for mobile uses – or for the next one billion of new internet users, who’ll all be mobile ONLY for years before they buy a desktop PC – if they ever buy one at all, ’cause in ten years desktop PCs may rarely even be used any more – instead your home equipment might be shrunk down into I/O ports and screen of the wearable equipment that you carry with you permanently anyway…
All the best !!
Sir Allen says
They already have ISO.org, what more do they want? Greedy ********!
They don’t even own ISO.com!
They weren’t even using ISO.mobi and they let it “expire”??? What planet are these ‘people’ on, frigging PLUTO??
At least the ‘true’ ISO.mobi owner had plans to use it.
No doubt they’ll let it drop again next year and then PISS ON some other poor guy/girl.
ABSOLUTELY DISGRACEFUL!!!
Jana says
The decision contradicts WIPO policy…
“4 Paragraph 4(c)(i) provides that a respondent can demonstrate a right or legitimate interest by showing “before any notice to you of the dispute, your use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services”.”
and this novel interpretation by the sole panelist means no one can ever use a term that someone else has used…
“Respondent believes that it may use any “common phrase” or word or letter combination for its domain name so long as the use to which it is put does not compete with that of an owner of a trademark incorporating that phrase. As the Panel has stated, this is not the case generally, and it is particularly not the case when the mark at issue is world famous.”
and…
” If the allure to Respondent of the disputed domain name was the likelihood of numerous visits from users seeking Complainant, that fact would demonstrate bad faith for purposes of the Policy whether the site was used to compete with Complainant, for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra,7 for a dating business, or for any other purpose”
Appeal anyone?
An obvious avenue to explore is previous decisions and comments by this panelist.
EM @ KING.NET says
Just let it go, it’s a dot mobi.
Kidding aside, I will release it anyway to ISO as courtesy call. This will bring good rapport to the domain name industry in the long run.
IMHO.
jp says
So how did they prove that the domain was “hand picked”. I agree it probably was, but I find this interesting.