How often have you heard a UDRP panel deciding against the complainant even when the respondent didn’t even appear. Now on top of that add that not only the respondent won, but the panel also decided that the complainant was Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH).
This is what happened with the domain AdviceGroup.com.
Advice Group S.P.A. an Italian company filed a UDRP over the domain name AdviceGroup. The respondent was a domain investor. Investors in such cases fear spending money on legal procedure as well as time and hence usually opt out of the whole resolution process. Similarly the respondent here was not present. Cases like this usually go in favour of the complainant. The panel however breaking expectations slammed the complainant with a RDNH.
The panel noted, “the Registrar indicates that the Respondent acquired the Domain Name some two years before the Complainant obtained a trademark, and nine months before the Complainant even filed its trademark application. The Domain Name is a common English two-word term, and the Complainant offered absolutely no evidence to indicate that the Respondent had advance knowledge of the Complainant’s trademark plans and no reason to believe the Domain Name would ultimately be more valuable in relation to the Complainant”. Kudos to such awesome panelist to take the right stand even when they could have easily opted out of it.
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