Hayward, California domain name given to pool company.
Here’s a domain name dispute that should make geo domain owners’ blood boil.
A three person World Intellectual Property Organization has awarded the domain name Hayward.com to pool company Hayward Industries.
The domain name is owned by Chad Wright, a domain investor known for owning popular California city .coms. Hayward is a city in the San Francisco Bay area.
Hayward Industries convinced the panel that the parked domain name at Hayward.com showed links for the pool company and its competitors. But a look at archived screenshots of the domain doesn’t show anything related to the pool company. Instead, it has links to “airline tickets”, “hotels”, and “employment”.
So how did Hayward Industries get these competing links to show up on the site? Well, you can always perform a search on the domain for “hayward”. You could also do that on any other domain, for that matter.
Worse, the WIPO panel of Douglas M. Isenberg, W. Scott Blackmer and David H. Bernstein, decided how much geo domain names should be worth. Wright bought the domain name for $20,000, and listed it in an auction for $100,000. Apparently this is too much to pay for a city geo domain name based on the city value alone:
Finally, the Panel finds it informative – though not decisive – that, according to documents in the record, Respondent purchased the domain name hayward.com for USD$20,000 and was attempting to sell it for at least USD$100,000. These figures would seem to indicate that Respondent saw some value in this domain name for reasons other than its existence as the name of the city of Hayward, California – with a population of only about 150,000 people, according to the city’s website – and for purposes other than as a PPC parking page (which, in the normal course, would not be expected to earn a return to justify such a rich investment)
Hmm. Palm Springs has a population of less than 50,000. I think I’ll ask the Castello bothers to sell it to me for less than $100,000.
Chad should file suit against the pool company including legal costs and punitive damages.
NameDev – perhaps, depending on where Hayward Industries selected as the jurisdiction. The domain is at Fabulous in Australia. If that’s the jurisdiction, chances are an Australian court won’t bother to hear the case.
Any .com is in US jurisdiction by definition, so is the Hayward Industries.
.COM is the US extension, anyone taking it accepts US jurisdiction.
Anything for you, Andrew 🙂
Doug Isenberg sends out the GigaLaw report, which is a moderately useful tool. I wonder if he’ll include your post in his daily list of law-related Internet news…
What a joker.
Hopefully Chad does file a lawsuit.
It is hard to feel bad for Chad Wright.
I am glad he got screwed, in my opinion he deserved it.
Hope he gets it again sooner than later.
Explain to me how this is a bad call?
The domain which has duel use, was showing ads of a trademark holder, and so it was taken away.
That’s what happens.
@ Mark Stenplopols –
“The domain which has duel use, was showing ads of a trademark holder, and so it was taken away.”
It only showed those trademarked ads when the complainant searched for a trademark. I could show the same ads on any domain by doing the same search.
I dont otherwise know either of the parties. But something is seriously wrong… are we at the point where the first known “Hayward” wins, or the best known one – how many freaking Haywards could make claim to that name? Guy lays out 20k for the domain name of a geo location, and gone like that? How is anyone going to feel secure buying digital properties with arbitrary decisions like that? What if he paid $3,000,000 because it was developed with advertising and all? .. The reasoning of this decision sounds more like Eminent Domain than anything to do with trademark or whatever.. and in eminent domain they have to give you fair compensation for taking your property. Regarding Fabulous being in Australia, there HAS to be a WIPO forum for appeals that supersedes the court venue where the “registrar” is located? If not, I guess you need to consider the legal location of the registrar when registering a domain, big time. Like corporation flock to Delaware.
@ Bob Fontaine:
You wrote:
“Regarding Fabulous being in Australia, there HAS to be a WIPO forum for appeals that supersedes the court venue where the “registrar” is located? If not, I guess you need to consider the legal location of the registrar when registering a domain, big time”
Absolutely, you should consider this. A lot of people felt safer moving their domains outside the U.S. This has repercussions.
“What if he paid $3,000,000 because it was developed with advertising and all?”
If it was developed it would not have been taken away.
I dont think it’s that simple Troy. If that’s the case, then it’s not a decision based on the question of “IF” Hayward industries had a legal right to it, but on the fact Wright only chose a parking page..? What if he had a few tiles for the local restaurant on that parked page.. or two pages of free ads about local businesses.. are you sure the desicion would have been different? When do you suggest the decision changes, at what specific point? They shouldn’t be basing it on WHAT the guy did with his $20,000 investment, it should be WHAT rights do Hayward Industries have to the name – and that includes over and above 5,000 OTHER “Hayward” named entities. Otherwise, this guy could be defending himself (and his investment) from the next 100 Haywards.. and the thousands after that. But if he “developed” it outside of the “parking” model.. he’s all set? I dunno.
Too bad these idiot panelists don’t own any 150K population cityname.coms that they could sell to me.
I don’t disagree with what you wrote Bob, I think the decsion was flat out bad too. I am just saying that things would have looked a lot better for the owner of the domain had he the foresight to put up even a simple site about Hayward, CA instead of letting it sit parked.
Parked sites a no good, the panelists hate them, if you have a good domain then you need to develop, even if it is just a simple site. A developed site that does not infringe on a copyright will not be taken away.
Hayward Pools are now seemingly accomplished domain thieves.
Congrat’s Hayward Pools on the reverse domain name hijacking…. and for pulling the wool over the panelists eyes.
That’s just bad business.
Chad is a legend in the domain biz and a very nice guy. I am sorry to hear he lost his domain.
As a rule last names, 3 letter and 4 letter domains are kind of risky. If you go throuhg all the UDRP’s ever filed you’ll see lots of last names, 3 letter and 4 letter domains.
I think the tide could turn on geo domains aslo. Most major towns and city’s were incorporated before the internet came along.
If I was the mayor of New York City I’d file a UDRP for NewYorkCity.com and NYC.com in a heartbeat. Being a developed site does not mean you automatically win.
Ya, well i’d tell the mayor that .gov was made for that “municipal” purpose, .com was made for commercial purposes.. and if he wants to take my triple decker for some “higher” public good – like commercial development, then compensate me as the law requires. But my rights to ownership of digital property command the same protections and respect from the government as does my physical property, so “enter at your own risk”!
I’m not a lawyer, but I play one in my mind.. (LawyersHotlione.com)- I hear you Troy, but think of how shallow that means the authoritative body is.. put SOMETHING UP QUICK.. to protect your rights.. as if THAT should be a determinant factor…that isn’t right. And to Andrew’s point… If I register my car in Massachusetts, but then do 110 mph in VEGAS, Mass has almost nothing to do with the resulting legal ramifications… I REALLY enjoy visiting “the Wire” several times a day and hearing about these decisions…. but seriously – isn’t that what we’re really talking about – the eventuality that some higher court needs to rule on “Exactly what does the registration and control of A doamin name means” – They protect brand, they protect trademark, they protect patents, they protect reputations, they protect non-competes, non-disclosure, trade secrets, etc.. at SOME point someone is going to have to stand up and say – he got it, everyone wants it, many have SOME claim to say they could have AN interest, but he acquired it, it’s HIS!”
Well to show I wasn’t spamming you all, I spelled the domain name wrong.. and we’ll leave it at that.. few beers by chance will do that..
Doug Isenberg is a domainer too. He has a parked names as well. BOne of the bigger hippocrits out there.
@Anderw
You wrote:
“The domain is at Fabulous in Australia. If that’s the jurisdiction, chances are an Australian court won’t bother to hear the case.”
It is true that (unlike the US) Australia does not provide a statutory provision to bring a post-UDRP case to court. However, although it is more difficult, it is possible to bring such an action and to have it heard here.
Isenberg + Bernstein
’nuff said
Ok, what do we do? It seems that at every level in every one of our lives, there’s just one more problem. Maybe it’s just “waiffer thiiin” but it makes me sick in the same way.
Who are these people making these decisions?
IS there a public website to investigate them and their decisions?
Everything is public – maybe it’s time to publicly examine these creatures.
These panelists have figured out the bigger percentage of plaintiff wins the better. That makes more companies realize they have a good chance of stealing a domain name. That creates more UDRPs and more $ in the pockets of these dirtbag panelists.
When you sign a contract, both parties agree as to the the governing legal forum in the event of a dispute between you. Being that this could be especially germain in the context of a domain dispute, I would think that at some point a state court would try a case, and take a stated position on many of these issues. Then, regardless of where the registrar is located, their contracts could say “Parties agree that registrar will recognize Delaware USA law in all disputes related to this registration”. The Registrar should be a minor player in these arguments, a simple facilitator. Then in a common generic or geo domain name, the burden shouldn’t be “Harward company you deserve it more that John Smith”… it should be “Harward company, prove to us that your right to this domain name is so absolute that you would defeat any other party that could claim a right to “Hayward” (Including municipalities, other famous “Haywood” named brands, etc..). The bar needs to be raised for taking someone’s property.. and it shouldn’t be decided by a small panel using inconsistant, arbitrary and admittedly “not decisive” factors.
it ain’t over ’till its over.
…and this ain’t over.
😉
@ Cartoonz – yes, I think Hayward Industries is going to run up some legal costs on this one.
I like the part of the “analysis” where they state that the $20K purchase price for the domain name indicates that the value was based on the pool product company instead of a city of over 150,000 people.
Ummm… color me daft, but I would bet that the real estate market in Hayward, California is worth several orders of magnitude more than a truckload of pool filters. One of the primary value-drivers of geo names is the real estate market. So, leaving aside whatever the GDP of a 155K population city might be, the notion that a 160 employee pool filter company is of greater economic value is amusing.
Re: Ok, what do we do? (Kross@23)::
We start by electing better government officials in our own country, imho. If the rights of private property are not recognized in a person’s own country, why should those rights be respected on a world level? (Kelo decision eminent domain, etc.)
The panel was not very clear on whether the name was “registered” in bad faith. It may have been “used” in bad faith by parking the domain name and displaying ads, but that’s only half of the equation. The complainant must show both that the domain name was “registered and used” in bad faith. For the “registration” prong, I would have argued that Respondent did not have Complainant’s trademark in mind when he purchased the domain name. Additionally, I would have argued that Complainant waited too long to complain. Both arguments worked when I defended one of my companies against an UDRP filed by a California state agency.
its scary decision 🙁
To no one’s surprise, the Hayward.com matter has been appealed in real court:
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-caedce/case_no-1:2010at00114/case_id-203792/