Panel consolidates claim on basis that 106 respondents are actually just one group.
Watchmaker Seiko has won a UDRP covering 138 domain names that include “seiko” in them.
The number of domain names would make this case interesting enough. Making it more interesting is that there are technically 106 respondents to the UDRP.
UDRP’s can only be filed against a single domain name owner. Multiple owners can’t be consolidated into one case. But Seiko argued that the domain owners, with names as varied as Robert Wright to Zhang, were all really one group:
The Complainant submits that all of the disputed domain names are under common control and should therefore be consolidated into this single Complaint under the Policy. The Complainant’s basis for this submission arises from a number of factors, including that: the disputed domain names were registered through only two different Registrars on four different registration dates; each incorporates the word mark SEIKO together with a non-distinctive generic or geographical term; the disputed domain names all resolve to the same or similar websites which offer watches for sale; the physical contact addresses for each of the disputed domain names is false and the contact email addresses use only two domains, namely @teleworm.us and @163.com. Further the Complainant says that the disputed domain names feature common registration information such as administrative contact details, technical contact details, postal addresses, email addresses, IP addresses, and telephone and fax numbers. All 138 domains use only 22 different primary IP addresses and these are closely related into five groups.
The majority of the domain names were .info domains registered at GoDaddy; the rest were .com domains registered at Network Solutions.
Now they can pay renewal fees for 138 crap names every year. When will the stupid employees at these companies learn that all they have gained is an unnecessary repetitive expense.