Two more cybersquatting cases were filed in abuse of the UDRP.
It probably seems like I’ve been writing a lot of posts about reverse domain name hijacking lately. Hey, I don’t control the flow of unscrupulous companies filing bogus RDNH cases. I take them as they come.
Here are two more.
First up is Crestron Electronics, Inc, which filed a UDRP against a former partner for crestronasia.com, crestronasia.asia and creston.asia.
The domains are owned by Transtrade Hong Kong Co. Limited (formerly known as Crestron Asia Limited). As you can probably guess, these two companies used to be partners. It’s basically a case of a distributorship that went sour.
Panelist Tony Willoughby noted that the respondent clearly didn’t register the domains in bad faith when it registered the domains. Just because the relationship has ended doesn’t change the state of the relationship when the respondent registered the domains.
The second case was filed by Platterz Inc for the domain name platterz.com. Platterz owns the domain name Platterz.ca.
The company was formed well after the registrant registered the domain name. The complainant tried to buy the domain name. When that failed, it filed the UDRP.
Intriguingly, respondent Andrew Melcher said he has never sold or leased a domain name. Since he owns over 10,000, I wonder what he’s doing with these domains. Because he didn’t argue he is a domain investor, the panel didn’t find him to have a legitimate interest or rights in the domain.
Still, he clearly didn’t register the domain in bad faith well before the complainant existed. The panel was miffed that Platterz cited a case in which bad faith was found when a domain was registered before the complainant registered its trademark, because in that case (unlike the present one) the complainant had common law rights before the registration.
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