Company wins great domain name at UDRP just two weeks after being found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
Just two week ago, financial firm Versa Capital Management was found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) by an arbitration panel when it tried to get the domain name VersaCapital.com. But Versa Capital and its lawyers are high-fiving now that they picked up an even better domain, Versa.com, at arbitration.
This answers one of the questions of why companies bring frivolous cases. There’s no penalty for losing, and a lot to gain for winning.
In the Versa.com case the domain owner didn’t respond to the complaint. Perhaps his whois information was wrong or he was on vacation. But that allowed Versa Capital Management to make its allegations without any sort of defense, and it walked away with the domain. Frankly, even without a response this decision should have been in favor of the respondent.
VersaCapital.com was registered well before Versa Capital Management came into existence. Versa.com was also registered well before — in 1994 — but its ownership changed hands after the company was formed. Versa Capital has only been around since 2007 and only has an intent-to-use trademark filed with USPTO. But National Arbitration Forum arbitrator Louis E. Condon decided that Versa Capital had common law rights to the term Versa:
Complainant can and has sufficiently established common law rights in the VERSA mark by showing that its mark has established secondary meaning through its continuous use in conjunction with unsolicited media attention.
It’s preposterous to suggest the respondent had Versa Capital Management in mind when it acquired the domain name. A simple Google search for “Versa” shows a number of companies and products, including a Nissan car, a valve company, and a Verizon phone. But Versa Capital is nowhere to be found on the first page.
In Condon’s world, any one of these companies using the term could have grabbed it at UDRP. The decision mentioned nothing of competing pay-per-click links on the site; only generic links.
You can read the decision here.
Hat tip to UDRPsearch.com.
Lots of these decisions are corrupted imho. There is not much different to steal domain via UDRP or via email hijacking.
Okay…..now I’m mad. I’m about to blow my top. That’s a 100%, in your face, breach of the UDRP rules. And, even those are insanely unjust compared to the U.S. court system.
I do believe it is our duty as domain owners to let the NAF know what we think of this decision.
Louis E. Condon knows NOTHING about UDRP rules and made this decision based on “feelings” seemingly. I wonder if he’s anything like the judge in the Pirate Bay case? A little biased maybe? How else could this decision have been handed down? You have to seriously ask this when the decisions are this bad. This is as bad as it gets and as dumb as it gets.
It appears that these kind of decisions are made based on what they think is good for the commerce as a whole and as such they are willing to sacrifice any individual rights to any domain name that they think might be better used by a bigger company. Even if they can justify their decisions this way they still need to make sure that the rightful owner of the domain is compensated for its full potential value.
What a fascinating example. I’d like to assume they would have lost had the domain owner responded.
Realistically, he never responded so protocl says Vesa Capital should take the name right? But it is pretty obvious RDNHJ.
So here is the question, does anyone out there have a TM for VersaAnythingElse? If you do you should file UDRP against Versa Capital for Versa.com.
I’m currently waiting for a decision by Louis E. Condon on one of my domains.
By UDRP rules, I should be fine on all 3 policies, certainly in a much stronger position than the owner of versa.com, but the Complainant threw up a lot of flak, much of it obviously ridiculous, and now I’m worried that the panelist won’t spot that.
donnacha…..get ready to file a lawsuit in case you have to. You only have 10 days to file if you lose.
Thanks for the advice John – can anyone recommend a good online guide to filing a lawsuit?
Louis E. Condon is not intelligent enough to be an arbitrator. He’s about as competent as that judge who kept letting child rapists roam free. He and Versa Capital will end up getting what they deserve in the end.
When I read the decision last Friday, I also immediately noticed the lack of competing PPC link evidence too and was shocked that the owner lost.
I agree 100% that the owner should have won, response or not.
This raises the question that if the all the facts were to remain the same, would responding had made any difference?
I just noticed that someone named Ben Dean went as far as to setup a minisite at http://www.UDRPfail.com to draw awareness to the injustice of his case – DEACOM.COM
He lost even though he had a corporation that matched the name of his domain!
I think all these UDRP injustices are starting to hit a fever pitch!
#10, thanks, I just posted about it.
http://www.udrpfail.com/ is a GREAT example. Andrew how hard would it be to come up with more of these injustices? Rocky.com was UDRP hi-jacked from a friend of myne 2 years ago, and he had Berryhill on his side. The UDRP process should be under investigation for fraud at the very least. I have seen at least a dozen cases that shocked me, and some of them violate free speach directly.
@DS – I read the decision, and I don’t think Rocky.com responded.
We’re in the process of setting up a UDRPtalk section to UDRPsearch.com, so the most heated discussions will be easily visible with the current case status, all in one place.
Stay tuned…
I am not going to pretend that I know enough about this case to decide whether the decision was right or wrong, but I DO know enough about Judge Louis E. Condon to know that he is more intelligent and more competent than most. So Greg, I believe that you will be the one that will get what you deserve in the end. Who gave you the right to attack a perfect stranger’s character and integrity over something as worldly as this?
@shocked
If Louis E. Condon is, as you claim, intelligent and competent then he must be fully aware that his decisions lack any integrity or honesty. This year, he has brought entirely new lows to the UDRP process, and I say this as one of the people who lost a domain because of his dishonesty.
Like others who have had the bad luck to run up against Condon, my use of my domain, filta.com, broke not even one of the three UDRP guidelines and my ownership predated the the Complainant’s business use of the name.
Condon has cashed in his integrity in return for a regular flow of cases from an arbitration company determined to maintain the highest level of Complainant wins in the industry – as long as he keeps transferring domains, NAF will keep hiring him. Condon is their silver bullet, kept in reserve for single panelist cases in which no other panelists can question his decisions. You only have to look at those decisions to see that he will use any excuse to find for the Complainant, ignoring any evidence presented and any sense of natural justice.
@donnacha – Well said. I agree with you.