It just wasted money filing a frivolous complaint over INW.com.
The results are in on Instrumentation Northwest’s case against Nat Cohen’s Telepathy for the domain INW.com.
No surprise here. With the help of domain attorney Ari Goldberger, Telepathy won the case.
But the complainant should really ask its lawyer to give back whatever he or she charged to represent it. This case was dead from the beginning, and any good lawyer would have told their client this. (Perhaps their lawyer did and the company didn’t listen.)
The panel declined to find reverse domain name hijacking, but concluded:
Finally, the Panel declines to find reverse domain name highjacking on this record, although a finding of RDNH could arguably be supported here. Be that as it may, after carefully weighing all of the circumstances of the case, the Panel chooses to interpret this Complaint as misguided inasmuch as it was doomed from the start and should not have been brought. There is no hard evidence, though, that Complainant was ill motivated in lodging the Complaint.
This is tough to swallow. If a case is doomed from the beginning, a sophisticated company should have been able to determine that before it forced an innocent party to pay a lawyer to defend itself.
We’re talking about a company that offered $2,100 for a three letter .com domain name. When the owner responded back with a much higher price it filed a UDRP.
To me, this case is a good example of RDNH. Its certainly “ill motivated” in what it forced Telepathy to do.
But either way, I really hope the complainant’s lawyer cautioned against filing this case. Not only would it be impossible to win the case, but a quick web search about Telepathy would show that the respondent would fight the case and ultimately win.
Ron says
They deserve to lose every dollar they invested, the lawyers didn’t bring this case on they did, they went to the lawyers, lawyers didn’t come to them.
Maybe next time, they can take the $10K, and add the $2100, and come up with a decent offer.
Domain Smell says
@Ron…you have a point, but still, a good lawyer who values his reputation would not have taken the case.
Poor judgment on both the Complainant and the UDRP lawyers on this one. How dirty of both of them.
Instrumentation Northwest sure sound like domain thieves to me.
Where’s the shame? Seems like a dirty, scummy company for trying this.
Relative says
“a sophisticated company should have been able to determine”
sophistication is relative
“a good lawyer who values his reputation”
misnomer…no such beast exists
At the end of the day this is no different than Mike Berkens scooping someone elses Twitter name or Mike Mann registering Facebook typos….these guys are still stars but hey, its ok when domainers do the dirty deed right!