Owner of .net domain name filed cybersquatting complaint.
Baseball equipment company DBAT has lost a UDRP it filed against Frank Schilling for the domain name DBAT.com. The baseball company uses the DBAT.NET domain name.
According to the decision (embedded below), DBAT originally threatened Shilling with a UDRP in 2009. It then tried to acquire the domain name through an attorney in 2012. While the details of the 2012 discussions are in dispute, it’s clear that the company tried to buy the domain name that year.
Three years after trying to buy the domain and 6 years after threatening a UDRP originally, DBAT brought a UDRP for the domain.
The panel determined that the domain name was not registered and used in bad faith. It was registered shortly after DBAT started business and before it received any registered trademarks, and the panel found it unlikely that Schilling had ever heard of the complainant at the time his company registered the domain name.
Schilling was represented by John Berryhill. DBAT was represented by Steven L. Rinehart, the same attorney that filed the recent lawsuit against MySchool.com.
Robbie says
With the quality within their inventory, and all the wolves out there attempting to steal such quality acroynms there is no end in sight to such madness.
They have a domain in d-bat.com, if they are unhappy with their domain, they should pay the current property owner the due compensation to upgrade their domain status.
John says
Perfect example of How a UDRP should never have been allowed to occur. “…It was registered shortly after DBAT started business and before it received any registered trademarks…” That can’t be determined in reviewing the filing and telling them NO UDRP allowed?
ad says
Now, the price of the domain is 10 times higher.
zegna says
> they should pay the current property owner the due compensation to upgrade their domain status.
Agreed. Due compensation of about $5000.
Nic says
@zegna
What you or the market or anyone else determine is “due compensation” is beside the point. The only relevant issue is whether the registrant wishes to sell and for how much the registrant wishes to sell, ie the price is subject to the vendor.
zegna says
> the price is subject to the vendor
which is why the domain market is as bent as they come. When a vendor has a monopoly over something, he should not be the one setting the price. Ok the buyer could use .net or whatever, but really the exact match .com is an unusually powerful monopoly, given that any alternative carries considerably less credibility, even if the new tlds may change that to some extent.
Andrew Allemann says
It’s not really a monopoly. It’s a unique item. I don’t have a “monopoly” on the lot my house is built on, it’s just a unique item.
zegna says
whether or not I’m using the right terminology, there is a world of difference between the two examples. It doesn’t matter if you want to charge a billion dollars for your plot of land. Buyers will find alternatives that suit them just as well. But the buyer of a .com that exactly matches his business has no alternative that is anywhere near as satisfactory. A domain that has little value to anyone else can have huge value to one potential buyer due to his particular business name or idea. This situation is very unusual.
Andrew Allemann says
I agree that it’s somewhat unique. I disagree that the only choice this company has is its exact match .com domain name.
There are lots of companies that have dictionary words or generics as their names, and they use descriptive terms as additives to make a domain name. How many companies use the name ABC? There’s only one ABC.com.
In this case, it would seem DBATBaseball.com or DBATSports.com would work just fine. According to the company’s UDRP filing, it has become one of the biggest baseball/sporting goods makers. It did this without DBAT.com.
I’m a bit confused when looking at its history. DBAT is somehow affiliated with DallasBat.com. I think one was a league or something, and then the products may have come out of that? I believe it was originally called Dallas Bat, but it’s hard to tell for sure.
I highly doubt that Frank Schilling knew about the baseball bat company when he bought this domain. People like Frank were buying any good 4 letter domain they could at the time. It’s unclear what sort of web presence this bat maker had back then.
Finally, it was a pretty boneheaded move to file this UDRP. A few minutes of research would reveal the action is a rabbit hole. Even had the complainant somehow won this UDRP, it would have ended up in court in Cayman. Whether or not you think that’s fair, it’s the reality, and all DBAT ended up doing was wasting money and making it even less likely that it will be able to buy the domain name in the future.
Steve says
Where is the reverse highjacking? This should have never even been heard. No deterrent to stop this nonsense and the respondent gets hammered with a legal bill. Kangaroo system.
Dillon says
I can tell you what they want. They want 50K. The company started in April 2001 they bought Dbat.com in June the same year and have never used it. They contacted us from the Caymen Islands asking for 40 times the registration fee. What do you call that
Andrew Allemann says
Wait, they contacted you? The panel decision says that you contacted them.
Not sure what the Cayman Islands has to do with anything.