A jury ruled that the owner of IMI.com was not cybersquatting on IMI.com.
A jury has determined (pdf) that Jeffery Black, the owner of IMI.com, was not cybersquatting with his 1994 registration of IMI.com.
I determined the same thing with just a few minutes of research, but Black has been fighting this case since 2017 when National Arbitration Forum panelist Neil Anthony Brown QC ordered the domain transferred to Irving Materials, Inc. It was an out-of-character decision for Brown.
Black said he was unaware of the UDRP proceedings and did not respond to the case. Still, the ruling should not have gone against the domain in the first place.
Bringing a case like this, especially one that proceeds all the way to trial, is incredibly expensive. While the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) is a good thing for resolving most cybersquatting disputes, this case is an example of where the system failed. I hope that the UDRP review at ICANN looks at cases like this to determine how to avoid injustices like this happening in the future.
Did you forward this case information Gerald Levine, WIPO and the panelist Neil Anthony Brown that decided the case? Hope so…
Neil Anthony Brown QC is a total dickhead. I too had one of his unfair decisions overturned at Court. The guy is a prat and “QC” does clearly not mean “Quality Control”