SMA.com spared in UDRP case
Friday, July 6th, 2012
Panel rules domain not registered in bad faith.
In May I wrote about how the owner of SMA.de — SMA Solar Technology AG — had filed a UDRP to get the domain name SMA.com.
A three person World Intellectual Property Organization panel just handed down the verdict: the owner of SMA.com can keep the domain name.
The current owner registered the domain name in 1995. SMA Solar Technology became interested in the domain and tried contacting the owner in 2005. It was rebuffed. Then in 2011 SMA Solar Technology hired an investigator to track down the owner once again:
The investigator recorded that Mr. Platko “stated that he does not understand why people continue calling him in an attempt to buy the [disputed domain name]. He was curt and emphatic that he did not want to talk to the [investigator] and then stated that the [disputed domain name] is not for sale.”
SMA Solar Technology characterized Platko’s response in 2011 (and in 2005, when he joked that he wanted 100 million dollars for the domain) as proof that he was trying to extract a lot of money for the domain. The panel didn’t buy it.
SMA argued that the renewal of the domain in 2009 was in bad faith. Good luck with that argument.
I will give SMA Solar some credit here, however. It didn’t file a UDRP when it was initially rebuffed. It then went the extra mile to hire an investigator to track down the owner in 2011. It filed a UDRP as last resort.
Of course, this also counted against it in the UDRP. It clearly believe it needed to buy the domain because the owner was the rightful owner. Why else would you go to the extreme length of hiring an investigator to track down the owner?
At the end of the day, there’s no way you can argue this domain was registered in bad faith.
As for the elusive Platko, he didn’t respond to the UDRP filing.
SMA.com does not resolve, and apparently it’s been like that for a long time. Maybe even a couple decades.
Tags: sma solar technology ag, sma.com, sma.de, udrp, wipo
I would not be so easy to give them “credit”, but I see where you are coming from.
When SMA Solar Technology decided they could not buy it no matter what, they tried to steal it through UDRP is what it looks like on the surface. Just another domain thief to add to the domain thief wall of shame, IMO.
Don’t give these guys any more credit then a thug with a knife against your neck in an alley. There is NO difference.
If you say give me your money five times and I don’t and then you put your knife to my throat, it does not make you much of a better person than the one that put the knife to my throat without asking.
Glad to see he could keep his domain, and rightfully, he should be able to without harassment.
“Maybe even a couple decades.” This can’t be true, as it was registered in 1995
TGIF!
If there’s just one thing that complainant can be remotely credited for, it’s their so-called honesty in especially explaining what transpired before this filing.
Not really every other day you get something like that, albeit shooting themselves in the foot is arguably common.
What some of these companies don’t understand,
is that they a destroying the rep as real
biz men. Anyone researching SMA Solar Technology will figure out that they are
slime
HA HA and stupid slime because now they will have to pay double plus lawyer fees.
Everything is for sale, I guess these idiots didn’t find that out in 3rd world biz school.
Leave it to a Solar Product company to try and swindle the little guy out of a domain name, Just like the taxpayer got swindled by Solyndra for 1/2 a BILLION dollars.
They weren’t satisfied with just having the .de TLD to peddle their solar crap onto unsuspecting customers, NOPE, they had to have the dot com and stomp on whoever owned it.
Reminds me of the corporate dirt bags at Nissan.