Not the right way to upgrade your domain name.
Etrack LLC, which operates a website at by-fy.com, has been found to have tried to reverse domain name hijack the domain name byfy.com.
The company has a trademark for byfy with a first use date in 2020. In its UDRP, it said the domain was registered in 2004. This admission that the domain was registered before it had trademark rights made the case dead on arrival.
It turns out that the domain owner acquired the domain in 2013-2014, which was still well before Etrack’s trademark rights.
Etrack LLC inquired about buying the domain before filing the UDRP but ultimately passed on the domain owner’s asking price. This is a classic “Plan B” reverse domain name hijacking.
World Intellectual Property Organization panelist Lawrence Nodine pointed out the obvious deficiencies in his ruling.
The Bobadilla Law Firm represented the Complainant. Fish & Richardson P.C. represented the domain name owner.
UDRP providers should have a question that requires complainants to certify that their trademark rights preceed the creation date of the domain name(s) at issue in the filing form.
I realize that some complainants are rolling the dice. And maybe there was an intervening transfer or something but that should not matter. It’s a policy issue that needs to be addressed.
I’m a big proponent of asking this question. It would help everyone other than the udrp providers and their panelists
One could make the argument that spending thousands of dollars of client money to file a UDRP against a domain name that was registered/acquired 5+ years before any trademark use (e.g. slam dunk losing UDRP) borders on malpractice.
I often wonder if the lawyer explains this to the client and the client pushes forward anyway, or if the lawyer doesn’t know what he or she is doing. It’s probably a mixture of both.