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Frank Schilling successfully defends OceanBreeze.com domain in UDRP

by — Policy & Law 5 Comments

Company filed cybersquatting claim after failing to buy domain.

JC Global wanted the domain name OceanBreeze.com for its line of air conditioners…but didn’t want to pay the asking price.

Frank Schilling, with the help of attorney John Berryhill, has defended his company’s domain name OceanBreeze.com in a UDRP.

The case was filed by JC Global. That company sells air conditioners and dehumidifiers under the Ocean Breeze brand.

JC Global’s case was dead on arrival. The domain name was registered well before JC Global got a trademark for Ocean Breeze. It’s also a fairly generic domain, and the parked page for the domain showed ads related to cruises.

This was clearly a “Plan B” UDRP filing. JC Global inquired about buying the domain name but wouldn’t meet the asking price.

The National Arbitration Forum panel did not consider reverse domain name hijacking.

Uniregistry gets patent for domain management and transfer system

by — Domain Registrars 0 Comments

Patent is related to its system for monitoring domains not registered at Uniregistry.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted patent number 9,807,053 (pdf) to Uniregistry for “System and method related to domain name tracking and transfer”.

The patent describes various aspects of Uniregistry’s account management system. In particular, it focuses on the ability to monitor domain names owned by the customer that are registered at different domain name registrars. It also has claims related to transferring domain names:

What is described is a system and method providing an improved customer experience for the Registrant. The Registrant is able to use a single interface to monitor multiple domain names as well as to transfer its domain names between Registrars. The single interaction with the single interface works out just as well and just as conveniently regardless of whether at the time a Registrant commences use of the system, a single Registrar happens to be handling all of the domain names, or whether each domain name is handled by a different Registrar.

Frank Schilling and Ryan Smith are listed as inventors. The patent was filed in August 2015 but was based on a provisional application filed in August 2014.

My thoughts on employee turnover at Uniregistry

by — Domain Registrars 15 Comments

Here are some probable reasons you’re seeing visible turnover at Uniregistry.

On Friday, Konstantinos Zournas at OnlineDomain wrote about something people have been mumbling about on message boards for a couple months now: turnover at Frank Schilling’s company Uniregistry.

Konstantinos is correct. There has been quite a bit of visible turnover at the company. A lot happened over the summer, but there has certainly been turnover for a while. I have explained DNW to a couple marketing people at Uniregistry, only to have them leave a week or two later. (I hope that’s not correlated!)

I think there are many reasons for this.

First, I should state that I know for a fact that not everyone leaving Uniregistry has been let go. Some have left on their own volition. Others have been fired.

I also know that headcount at the company is at or near its peak. So the company isn’t laying off people as a cut-your-way-to-profitability plan.

That said, here are some reasons I think Uniregistry has had visible turnover lately: Click here to continue reading…

Frank Schilling talks domains – DNW Podcast #149

by — Podcasts 18 Comments

Frank Schilling talks about the state of the domain name industry.

dnw-podcastDomain investor and Uniregistry founder Frank Schilling comes back on the program to talk about what’s going on in the domain world: new top level domains, Donuts taking over Rightside, and your .com domain investments. How is one of the world’s most successful domain name investors looking at domains? Also: GDPR, DailyStormer.com backlash and Broadcast.com.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:38 — 28.6MB) | Embed

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You’re not Rick Schwartz. So don’t try to emulate him.

by — Domain Sales 21 Comments

Your own circumstances probably don’t align with the most successful domain name investors.

This isn’t an article picking on domain name investor Rick Schwartz. I’m just going to use him as an example.

Rick has made a lot of money investing in domain names. He got in early, kept the faith, and has a negotiating style that leads to chart-topping sales.

Assuming you did not get in early and don’t have millions in the bank, you shouldn’t try to emulate everything he does.

I bring this up because I sometimes hear people say “Play hard to get” with domain buyers. String them along. If they really want the domain they will find a way to reach out to you and make it known.

This strategy makes a lot of sense for Rick. He’s not going to have to skip dinner if he doesn’t make that $250,000 domain sale.

When you have money you can pass on deals that other people would accept. It puts you in a great negotiating position. Your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) is to just skip the deal and move on. Click here to continue reading…