Man bought domain names for his lottery business but lost a UDRP to the soccer apparel company Lotto.
Based on my reading of the lawsuit, it appears that a) the UDRP was not well defended and b) the Canadian man probably isn’t cybersquatting.
Plaintiff David Dent is a majority owner of Trimark Ltd., a Gibraltar company in the lottery business. He acquired lottostore.com in September 2016 for $4820 and then purchased
lottoworks.com in December 2016 for $6500, according to the suit.
So he owns a lottery company and paid end user prices to acquire two lotto related domain names late last year. Very shortly after acquiring the last one, he got hit with a UDRP from the soccer apparel company.
Yet the UDRP response, filed by lawyer Steven Rinehart, apparently obfuscated when Dent actually acquired the domain names, merely noting that one of them was registered in 1998. The panel felt misled since the domains were just recently acquired.
A more plausible defense, in my opinion, would be to point out that the domain names were just recently acquired by a lotto company and that the short ownership period is why the domains haven’t been developed yet.
Dent is asking the court for a finding of reverse domain name hijacking, tortious interference with a contract and is asking for declaratory relief under the Lanham Act. Lotto Sport will have to defend itself in Arizona District Court, where registrar GoDaddy is located.
I think that lawyer has a lot to answer for with the date mistake “registered in 1998”. But more importantly why didn’t the lotto sport company buy the domain names themselves before hand.
This lawyer appears to have made the same mistake – also leading to the panel deciding that the respondent was not being honest – in http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2016-2328.
Classic examples of how to NOT defend a UDRP.
Paul Keating