Lawyer thinks it’s no biggie that a panel found that he filed a misleading UDRP complaint.
Yesterday, I wrote a story encouraging people to hire a domain name attorney when faced with a domain dispute of some kind. One person took exception to this suggestion: a lawyer who recently filed a reverse domain name hijacking case.
Nathan Brown, attorney at Brown Patent Law, filed a UDRP against the domain name ITDC.com, which is owned by Internet Tool & Die Company. The Complainant was found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking for a number of reasons. A critical one is that the complaint said the domain registrant didn’t exist at the address it listed, even though the Complainant knew the domain owner was a subsidiary of a business that did exist at that address.
In response to the suggestion that you hire a specialist (the story was unrelated to the ITDC.com decision), Brown tweeted:
So you win the domain but then get hammered in Federal Court; and eventually lose everything? #bigpicture
Domain disputes are such a very small part of the equation; risking your entire business on a “specialist” in domain disputes is a fool’s game. https://t.co/QXrqTI2Mwk
— Brown Patent Law (@PatentlyCurious) March 31, 2021
That didn’t make much sense to me. I asked him to explain. To which he responded:
I see only two purposes of the UDRP, and that is to force early discovery on the other side or to obtain an optimal jurisdiction after the decision. https://t.co/H2zAsloZTq
— Brown Patent Law (@PatentlyCurious) April 1, 2021
I’m not sure what the optimal jurisdiction argument is. You can file a lawsuit anywhere you have jurisdiction. If you file a UDRP, you’re also submitting yourself to the jurisdiction of either the domain registrar’s location or the domain owner’s location. In this case, the Complainant and its lawyer are in Arizona. Neither the registrar (Enom) or the Respondent are located there.
If you have a good case then UDRP is a great way to get the domain back fast and cheap. If you have a bad case then you’ll get hit with reverse domain name hijacking
— DomainNameWire.com (@DomainNameWire) April 1, 2021
I wish it was that simple. Lastly, RDNH label from the UDRP has no weight anywhere. Might as well stick thumb in mouth and cry. Equal weight.
— Brown Patent Law (@PatentlyCurious) April 1, 2021
Well, he has a point there. There’s no fine for RDNH in a UDRP. But even if a court doesn’t have to give deference to a UDRP decision that showed that the Complainant misled the tribunal and that it’s not a case of cybersquatting, I have to think those make for good opening arguments against any lawsuit brought against the domain. Oh, and if found to have tried reverse domain name hijacking in court, there can be some stiff costs associated with that.
I can’t find out much about Brown’s legal practice. The website in his twitter bio leads to a 404 error. He has a Facebook page that has a few posts from several years ago. I found one other UDRP he filed in 2018.
Apparently, morals, integrity, and reputation have no value to him.
That is why there is HallOfShame.com
It is written in INK and lawyers BEG me to take their names off cuz it hurts their careers.
Oh well, ONLY FACTS!! They have to live with it!
So, translation is…. He uses UDRP to waste hid clients money and he doesn’t undestand how jurisdiction works. Does that sum it up.?
HBA Holding LLC, United States of America (“United States”), represented by Brown Patent Law, PLLC, United States.
Well, Brown Patent Law, The actual attorney and HBA Holding LLC will be on HallOFShame.com as soon as Danny can get to update it!!
Let’s see how he feels about it after that circulates for a while!
And when they come BEGGING to be removed, the answer is always NO WAY!!
And people, companies and law firms like this, GET FEATURED!!
ENJOY!!
That will wipe the smirk off his face and change his attitude!
Well at least a lawyer came right out and stated what we all know – that a RDNH finding is not a deterrent to filing a UDRP complaint.
That lack of a penalty is the cause of all sorts of dubious filings against domain registrants.
He is totally right on the RDNH risk/reward.. This is something we have been vocal about for years that could clean up and remove a ton of BS cases.. It should be $5k penalty if you get a RDNH to cover the attorney cost.. ICANN needs to step up and do something about this structure soon then later… It will be a welcome addition and make the system and process stronger from cases and attorneys who abuse or use /leverage the system.. RDNH needs a real penalty.. not saying being on Ricks bad board is not enough but the community should be demanding for this to be addressed and updated..
The Complainant should have to put the $5,000 penalty fee in escrow UP FRONT so that post-decision collections is not an issue for the Respondent. If the Complainant wins, they get their money back along with the domain name transfer. If the Complainant loses, the Respondent gets the $5,000 and keeps the domain name.
But shouldn’t the Complainant get a $5k award too if they win?
No, if the Complainant wins, they get the domain name if there’s no appeal to a national court.
There are no rights in gross for trademarks.
HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN that it’s about *abuse* and *defrauding* of process, NOT about “loser pays”?
The reverse domain hijacker – BY DEFINITION – has abused and defrauded the process. That is *categorically different* from merely legitimately being deemed to have lost a dispute no matter which side you are on, and deserves a penalty accordingly.
There is no true or reasonable or justified “slippery slope” to “loser pays.”
This sounds great for domainers but the obvious argument is a $5,000 fine for the domainer when they lose. Careful what you wish for.
https://domainnamewire.com/2021/04/01/lawyer-who-filed-a-reverse-domain-name-hijacking-case-says-so-what/#comment-2264499
Q: What do you call 25 skydiving lawyers?
A: Skeet.
Mr. Brown appears to have a more serious problem. He holds himself out as “Brown Patent Law”. However, it does not appear (at least from my searches of the USPTO Office of Enrollment and Discipline) that he is a registered patent attorney.
Arizona Rules of Professional Conduct 7.1 prohibits lawyers and law firms from representing themselves as specialists in an area of law unless they are certified as such by a recognized accreditation authority. To make that crystal clear in this context Arizona Rule 7.1 includes explanatory notes, such as Note 7, in which it is expressly stated that patent lawyers are registered as such by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Now, it is certainly true that any lawyer may litigate a patent case in federal courts. However, that does not change the nearly identical rule in every state, and many disciplinary cases involving attorneys falsely holding themselves out as patent practitioners, that absent registration with the USPTO, attorneys are generally prohibited from suggesting that they are patent practitioners in their firm name or advertising.
To be sure, one may always search the USPTO attorney enrollment records here:
https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/practitionerSearchEntry
(try my name, for example)
Perhaps a three strikes and your out rule could help? An attorney or firm representing a UDRP case that gets found RDH three times and they are no longer eligible to represent clients in UDRP cases.
A copy of his tweets should be sent to the AZ state bar along with an ethics complaint.
Brown Patent Law took their website down. Rushing to make changes I guess.
heehee