Company files federal lawsuit following reverse domain name hijacking.
UDRP panels cannot levy a financial penalty on companies that file reverse domain name hijacking cases. But U.S. courts can.
Telepathy Inc., a domain name investment company led by Nat Cohen, has filed a federal lawsuit (pdf) against Corporacion Empresarial Altra S.L. after the latter was found to have engaged in reverse domain name hijacking (RDNH) against Telepathy’s AirZone.com.
The suit asks for a number of findings against the Spanish HVAC company, including a finding of reverse domain name hijacking. It is asking for more than $100,000.
This is a smart move by Telepathy. The company faces a lot of frivolous UDRP complaints every year, and they cost a lot of money to defend. Telepathy has recovered money from some of these cases by filing lawsuits. It should also dissuade future UDRPs against Telepathy’s domains.
Good on you Nat – smart move. Wish we could do this in Australia (though thankfully we don’t have a lot of auDRP’s at this stage).
@Ned ,if I may ask, what is the state of play in Australia re appealing to Court against UDRP ? Is there any case law that you know of ?.
John, I spoke with Erhan Karabardak of Cooper Mills (IP Lawyers) to make sure my answer was correct before replying. You can appeal to either Federal or Supreme Court for an initial injunction; and then a declaration that the decision of the auDRP panel was incorrect. Unfortunately, we don’t have punitive or statutory damages in Australia for this type of thing. Best that you could get would be an award of costs. As Erhan said to me, in his experience, cases like this have always settled before an actual hearing!
Ned, thanks for that. Well I am sure it won’t be too long before the Court’s are tested. Appreciate your effort & reply thanks.
Go Nat!
Anyone who does this is to be commended.
Deterrent + cost recovery, that’s always a good idea 🙂
Sounds like you need to be DDoS’d for being a lawsuit troll.
Is this a threat against DNW???
Or, am I missing something???
Lick dem down, mon!
Collie man thinks Nat need to big stomp on big Spanish shoes.
.
thumbs up to nat…
a CovFeFe Salute…
(smile)