Verdict Reached in PaperSnowflake.com Domain Dispute
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
This case was over before it even began.
I was scratching my head when I saw that someone had filed a UDRP against the owner of PaperSnowflake.com. Who in the world would go after a generic name like that?
We now have the answer, but I’m still scratching my head.
Patricia Kelley, who owns PaperSnowflakes.com (plural), filed the case. She operates a web site that instructs people on how to create paper snowflakes. With the help of counsel, she tried to argue that she had common law rights in Papersnowflakes.com, and that the singular version was confusingly similar.
The panel didn’t buy it, and Kelley didn’t even meet the first requirement to win a UDRP.
What’s amazing to me is that the owner of PaperSnowflakes.com apparently offered to sell the domain to Kelley for $2,000. That’s a great price, and the domain would probably fetch at least that much on the market. It’s also probably less than what she spent filing the UDRP and hiring a lawyer.
The respondent asked for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking. Panelist Alistair Payne neglected to consider the issue.
No related posts.
Are these wipo panelists even experts in the domain field?
Why not go after them for a reverse attempt?
In my defense, I contacted the domain owner of papersnowflake.com on five separate occasions over the past 7 year period with
bonifide offers to purchase the domain name. He claims he had no knowledge of my domain papersnowflakes.com so it must be
coincidence then that each time I renewed my registration for 3 years, then 10 years his domain would mysteriously also get
renewed for 3, then 10 years shortly thereafter. My bonefide offers to purchase this domain name have largely gone ignored by Mr. HQ.
The domain name papersnowflake.com initially appraised through godaddy.com’s certified appraisal service back in 2005 for a
little over $100.00. He countered with $1,700.00 at that time. This year 2010 the godaddy certified appraisal topped out at around $780.00.
This time the price was NOT $2,000 as you’ve claimed above. Mr. HQ innovation demanded that I first agree in writing to commit pay $2,000.00 BEFORE he would even consider
talking to me about a sales price. He also insisted I perform the sales transaction solely though his business, Innovation HQ, Inc..
Call me stupid if you want but I consider this extortionary practice. Because of this I believe HQ Innovation is untrustworthy.
I buy and sell through Godaddy.com domain service and trust them for smooth transactions and transfers of ownership. I made
all 5 of my offers for purchase of papersnowflake.com through Godaddy’s domain buying service and explained to mr. HQ
Innovation several times via email that all he had to do was talk to the godaddy buyer for all negotiations to ensure a smooth
transaction. Don’t tell Mr. HQ Innovation but I was prepared to pony up very close to the $2,000 mark but he
absolutely refused to even respond or acknowledge the many attempts of contact by my godaddy buyer.
This is why I decided to try take legal action. My attorneys said there was a good chance so I took the chance. Given that the respondent Innovation HQ, Inc. fibbed to the arbitrator, I am doubly convinced now that I made the wise decision even though I lost the dispute. Mr. HQ with his crocodile tears and twisted truths pulled the woll over panelist Alistair Payne eyes.
Am I pissed, hell no. Parked the domain probably brings in less than $20 per year and I sincerely doubt anyone else will be
interested in purchasing it – ever – especially not me.
Peace.
Given the above conjuctive explanation, the finding of reverse domain name hijacking would have been very appropriate here.
Regards.
@Pat – Why even waste your time? You are pissed. If you weren’t pissed you wouldn’t have filed your dispute.
I still don’t know why you figured you owned the rights to this domain.
Coincidence or not, why did you believe that the domain was yours?
@Pat,
What you experienced was a business dispute; the UDRP is not the proper forum to resolve such a grievance.
-UDRPtalk
He ignored my offers so I figured why not try to steal it…nice. At least you made your Lawyers’ day.
Pat Kelly:
1) Appraisals for the most part are bunk.
2) The true value of a domain name is what it is worth to an enduser. Period. Judging value by what the name would earn parked is irrelevant. Protecting an easy misspelling of your brand is paramount. It would have been prudent to have locked it at $1,700 in 2005. GoDaddy does not run your business, you do. And if you are serious about your business I would suck it up and still try to acquire it.
godaddy appraisal is like having ronald mcdonald appraise your domain name.. you get a smile with a bogus certificate.
Pat…..you make it sound like he needed a UDRP thrown against him simply b/c he would not respond to your offer through GoDaddy. Nobody has to respond to any offer. I went from 2000 to 2008 without responding to a single offer to sell a domain…..that’s not my business. I’m a buyer.
Also, it is a generic domain in which you have NO rights and your tradmark lawyers totally lied ot you. They just wanted your money.
You have absolutely NO RIGHTS to the common terminology in the English language.
Totall abusurd. IF it had been me, I would have sued you instead of letting you take it to UDRP and then I would have got some money from you. You are just lucky this did not happen.
The UDRP judges totally ignored what was a reverse domain name hijacking…..again you got lucky or your name and business would have been tarnished more than it already is now.
What you tried to be was a thief and you got nailed in the act Pat.
Yet another stupid domainer not able to sell to the unique buyer on this earth a zero value domain. The world market of Paper snow flakes is maybe a few hundred dollars a year
Thus his is most certainly a cybersquatter willing to monetize the place he occupies, and needs good money to move his fat back.
Ditto the comments above of Jade, David Castello, and Tim Davids.
Patricia, your attorney should have known better as your case was basically unwinnable because the domain name was much more generic in nature than distinctive.
All anger should be directed to your attorney who took your money knowing the chance of winning was close to 0%. If he/she did not inform you of this low probability of winning, then they were either incompetent or being intentionally deceitful/misleading.
Innovation HQ was within his lawful rights of registration. The other stuff about not responding, buying through his company, and coincidental registration renewal is a path to nowhere and has no bearing on the actual case itself.
He is NOT “cybersquatting” unless you have established clear, exclusive trademark rights … which is very difficult to accomplish with most generic domains and close to impossible with many generics. That is trademark law and the rationale behind protecting generics is necessary & quite beneficial.
Wow, she would have made more sense had she said nothing at all. And still she accuses the owner of being a liar… as if “fibbed” is a legal way to get around it. Sad part is, she really felt that she had a right to the name. Time for somebody to return to snowflake fantasy land.
@Pat You’re not alone. There are countless other domain name thieves out there. Most are successful thieves. Fortunately you were not.
Thanks for letting us in on Cameron’s proprietary negotiating tactics.
@David J Castello My sentiments exactly.
For a domainer, this looks like a situation that is worth analyzing. Mainly in terms of understanding the end-user’s thought process.
Ideally:
1) Contact domain owner of papersnowflake.com
2) Receive asking price of $1700 (or whatever)
3) Negotiate and agree on price
4) Use escrow process to pay and transfer domain
5) Profit!
It sounds like the dispute hinges on a layman’s inexperience with domain appraisals. In the everyday world, appraisals are weighed heavily because they have to be; loans are based on them.
It’s also much easier to generate an appraisal for a house, for example, because comparable sales are available. Coupled with a replacement value the price is reasonably accurate.
But as any domainer knows, domain appraisals are essentially worthless because domains are as far from a commodity as one can get. Even the art market has a more consistent method of price discovery for unique works. Not to mention that each seller is an auction house by themselves.
So like everything else in life, all that matters is the price that both the buyer and seller feel is fair.
Also, it appears that the buyer was too enamored of Godaddy’s escrow service. It’s no more magical than escrow.com or escrowdns.com. The home page for innovationhq even mentions that escrow will be used for transactions. Presumably through one of those two services.
All in all, it sounds like a simple transaction ballooned into a pissing match due to the misunderstanding of these nuances of the domain selling process.
Imho.
Automated appraisals have become the next wave of exploitation attaching itself to the domain name industry. An automated appraisal is worthless in vast majority of cases and cannot account for the real factors (and rather complex variables) that contribute to accurate domain name valuation.
Simple (or automated) appraisals are a fake product sold unfortunately to uninformed domain buyers.
You guys are all wet. There is still much debate over what constitutes cypersquatting and domain theft and the arguments will go on for years. I am certainly not ashamed or embarassed over trying to use the law to obtain the singular version of my active and popular domain name papersnowflakes.com in order to protect it from potential irreputable useage. The holder of the domain name was not willing to negotiate for any price by refusing to deal with my buyer who would have done nothing less than negotiate a fair deal. My good name has not suffered one whit. The domain name is his.
Your continued denial is truly entertaining to us here on this forum.
glad to oblidge
Pat, I just dont think you had enough “brand” to protect. If everyone who grabbed the singular was entitled to the plural, or visa versa, or the “e”.com, “i”,com, .net, .ifo, etc… it would simply be 1st come 1st served – gets all. Look at it thes way, the only ones he’s going to get are those
.
looking for a single snowflake.. and that’s no fun
exactly. Live and learn is my motto. Thanks Bob.
I say you’re both hardheaded and you both lost. The lawyers, WIPO and the panelist won.
“I am certainly not ashamed or embarassed over trying to use the law to obtain the singular version of my active and popular domain name papersnowflakes.com in order to protect it from potential irreputable useage.”
Ok, so much for benefit of the doubt. This was indeed a 100% bona fide reverse hijacking attempt based on that statement.
“Paper snowflake” is a generic term. End of story.
If that was true that means everyone would own the singular and plural versions of the word..
Ad.com Ads.com
Advertise.com Advertises.com etc
Should we all get the .cm’s too?
Let us throw it all into one complete package
I decided to check out these 2 sites. papersnowflake.com is better. papersnowflakes.com is one of the worst websites I’ve every encountered. Do confused kids click on all those banner ads?
ha ha, so let me guess…you tevo the commercials and block the shows! clue…turn off your javascript and the papersnowflakes.com site displays without ads. Not everything is about the almighty buck. what have you done lately for the good of all?
Pat Kelley,
you are an idiot and an arrogant SOB. If the filing didn’t prove your stupidity, your postings here sure did. The name is his, he puts the price, he decides when to or if answer to you requests, not you. Moron
Come down to mother earth, you have a site about about making stupid paper snowflakes, not Yahoo.
Hey O’man, Slow day, nothing to do?
Money can’t buy entertainment like this…
agree
As mentioned earlier, no one has to. And I guess one should use the law if one doesn’t essentially have their way?
Depending on the cause, I guess.