rob

What date was bounce.co.uk caught? On that date was hop.co.uk , skip.co.uk or jump.co.uk free to register?

As I raised in a consultation previously this is the exact thing I was worried about - legit names being taken off people due their 'previous form'.

__________________
Eat more chips! Dont let salad win! I am rob who runs hey. Twitter:@robcouk.
how to sell a website | sell your website to me whats the number for milk tokens? TDA BB Wrexham

invincible

2001.

No. All registered prior to 2001.

I have a feeling you were being rhetorical.

Can you elaborate a bit more, here, about exactly what you mean?

rob

Perhaps the experts ought to have checked that before saying the respondant ought to have registered similar. As at that point in time bounce.co.uk was the only one free

I might bang out requests for taken but similar names on the catch , just to show at time of registration I did try my best to register other close names.

My response was (I would link direct but nominet's search box is as useful as a one armed trapeze artist with an itchy arse, likewise google SERP links are fooked as Nom's site has been changed totally) :

But hey, if it was based on that alone would the name have been lost?!

__________________
Eat more chips! Dont let salad win! I am rob who runs hey. Twitter:@robcouk.
how to sell a website | sell your website to me whats the number for milk tokens? TDA BB Wrexham

texidriver

[quote=rob]was www.jump.co.uk free to register?

What a waste! What a waste!
But I don't mind.

http://www.lyricsbox.com/ian-dury-th...e-s1xg9d6.html

texidriver

Sorry if I repeat other comments, I got carried away.

"The Complainant has built up a very substantial goodwill and reputation in the BOUNCE name, as a result of the use it has made of this trade mark in the UK since 1982

the Complainant registered 'bouncesheets.com' in 1999, but did not register 'bounce.co.uk' at the same time, despite its availability for registration."


"8.3.2 The Complainant claims that the Respondent registered the Domain Name primarily with a view to preventing the Complainant from registering the Domain Name to reflect its trade mark rights..."

9 years later.


"The Complainant believes that registration of the Domain Name is detrimental to it by preventing it from establishing legitimate websites under the Domain Name reflecting its established business activities in the BOUNCE name"

www.bounce.us is COMING SOON to REGISTER.COM
Domain Registration Date: Fri Apr 19 20:59:03 GMT+00:00 2002 !
Registrant Name: Procter Gamble

Firefox can't find the server at www.bounce.eu !



"the Complainant expressly alleges in the Complaint that the degree of fame of the BOUNCE brand was such that the Respondent "must have been aware that the name Bounce denoted [the Complainant's] products and trade marks". There is no admissible challenge to that allegation."

My Dictionary says different..
Google says; Personalized Results 1 - 100 of about 71,100,000 for "bounce"
[definition]. http://www.answers.com/bounce&r=67 no mention of fabric softeners here


"For the Complaint to succeed, ........ its use in the manner made of it by the Respondent would be likely to attract Internet users to the Respondent's site believing that they were visiting a site associated with the brand owner........."

What would you believe you would find @ .....bounce.com....?

http://www.unitedkingdom.co.uk see the word Bounce anywhere?



"8.3.5 .....is it permissible for the Panel to decide that the Domain Name is an Abusive Registration for a reason not advanced by the Complainant? The Panel’s task is to assess on the basis of the material before it whether or not the Domain Name is an Abusive Registration within the definition set out in paragraph 1 of the DRS Policy. If the evidence supports a finding of Abusive Registration, the Panel is entitled to make such a finding irrespective of whether or not it is on the basis put forward by the Complainant."

"2. Dispute Resolution Service

....... and

ii. The Domain Name, in the hands of the Respondent, is an Abusive Registration.

b. The Complainant is required to prove to the Expert that both elements are present on the balance of probabilities."


Did the Complainant "prove" Abusive Registration.?





"2. The Domain Name in the hands of the Respondent is an Abusive Registration ....because:....
The Complainant wrote to the Respondent on 27 September 2005....
The Complainant received no response." !

Proved ?



"the brand was launched ..... in the UK in 1982 and astronomical sums of money have been invested in the brand in the UK from at least 2001 onwards.
Considering the extent of these sales and the considerable expenditure on advertising the BOUNCE products,....

Hard evidence to support the claim to common law rights pre-dating that financial year is also sparse in the extreme..."


No evidence was produced prior to the date the domain was regged.!


"in the Complaint and its annexes various factual claims are made by the Complainant,
(astronomical sums of money have been invested in the brand in the UK from at least 2001 onwards.)
none of which are challenged by the Respondent." !

No evidence was produced, what can you challenge ?




"the Panel is entitled to conclude on the balance of probabilities....
The Panel is permitted to use a measure of common sense.....
There is no admissible challenge to that "allegation"....."

yadda yadda .

sneezycheese

...Well said Texi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

'Experts' - I've got another word for them.

T.W. and whoever is in his pocket @ Nominet - 'BOTH' need to go!

Shameful.

invincible

I've learnt a fair amount from this appeal decision. For instance I'd forgotten that both parties aren't permitted to introduce new evidence or annexes unless either party believes that it is in the interest of justice to do so. The Respondent [Michael Toth] didn't respond to the original complaint and so chose to appeal. However his additional submissions were discounted because they had not been submitted in the first instance. This seems to have left him in a bit of a predicament, given he was still unable to submit any sort of evidence.

With regards the Complainant [P&G] establishing rights in the term "bounce", I consider that they were always going to do so. Prong one of the DRS is so easy to fulfil, it's usually a done deal. The respondent claimed never to have heard of the Bounce fabric sheets. Maybe he really hadn't and if he hadn't, I respect him for saying so. However I had heard of them and they have been around a long time! I presume the Experts had heard of them too and found it difficult to believe the respondent hadn't. It might have been better for the respondent to say something such as "Yes, of course I have heard of Bounce, the fabric sheets, but I didn't register the domain name because I was aware of them. I registered the domain name because..." and elaborate why the genuine registration was made. I don't think the respondent provided enough of an explanation about why he specifically chose to register the domain name.

The complainant references a large number of contentious domain names that the respondent is the registrant of and lumped the domain name in together with those, saying they were all part of a pattern of abusive registration.

The following numbering references the equivalent number points in the appeal decision

8.3.4 Apart from the obvious mistake, (where "Respondent" is used instead of "Complainant") the panel concluded that it was unlikely that the Respondent registered the domain name to block the Complainant from registering the domain name.

8.3.8 The panel concluded, on the balance, that the registration should be treated as abusive. However they concede that the word "bounce" is an ordinary dictionary word, and could have been registered for a host of different and justifiable reasons.

8.3.9 The panel refer to the Respondents portfolio which contains a number of contentious domain names. The Respondent has not offered an explanation about why he registered this domain name. He has mentioned, earlier, that he registered the domain name because of its genericness. However the panel concluded that even though the domain name is generic, there had to be a reason why the respondent selected this particular generic domain name and registered it rather than a different generic domain name. Respondent should have provided more details explaining why he made the registration. Perhaps merely saying "we register generic domain names because their availability is limited and also because we find them useful in tandem with our Internet developments" might have gone some way to offering an explanation. Domain names are registered on a first come first served basis, so there is nothing wrong with the Respondent registering this domain name if he can substantiate why he did so. If the domain name had been optimised within his directory site towards search results for trampolines or large inflatable castles then I feel that both would have been a genuine offering of relevant goods and services, within the realms of PPC, in tandem with the domain name. If the respondent had also registered buytrampolines.co.uk or largeinflatablecastles.co.uk then those domain names could have demonstrated a pattern of non-abusive registration.

I do wonder whether respondent could have referenced his portfolio at the time the domain name was registered, in order to attempt to demonstrate that at the time the domain name was registered he owned far fewer contentious domain names. I can see a circumstance where a registrant owns a valuable domain name, registered in 1996, and looses it because of domain names they registered 10 years later. Therefore I feel that this needs to be considered in the next DRS review because at the time the disputed domain name was registered the registrant may not have considered registering contentious domain names. Can you always be held accountable for something you did in the past, on the sole basis of something you did years later?

I know why the respondent has an address in the Turks and Caicos. The panel do not. Unfortunately the respondent neglected to explain why so the panel suspected he was trying to hide there. They refer to this because part of the appeal deals with why the respondent failed to respond to the original complaint in time. This was concluded to being because the respondents contact details were not kept up to date.

I have taken away a number of things from this appeal.

i) Keep your contact details up to date. Constantly check that those important email addresses work. Get a fax number (if it's a fax machine you control, ensure it has a memory just in case it runs out of paper). Fax to Email services are also available but make sure the fax to email sends the fax to an email address other than the one you have given to Nominet as your contact address. Also don't host your email on your main web servers or the server you mess about with/run your DAC/automaton/beta code on. It's easy to screw up your own server at the most inconvenient of times.

ii) Domain Name optimisation to relevant content or search results can be important. In this instance, if the domain name had been optimised to some relevant links then the complainant might have had a difficult job suggesting that the domain name was abusive. From what I gather, the domain name was simply pointing to the root of www.unitedkingdom.co.uk. That might have been fine under some circumstances but, in this case, it wasn't. Personally I am not convinced that the domain name pointing to the root of the above site would have constituted abusive registration by itself. This is where (iii) comes in.

iii) If you own a large portfolio of contentious domain names, be careful. They could bring your apparently non-contentious domain names down. We've seen that on more than one occasion.

iv) Always respond to a complaint!

v) You often need to respond to everything the Complainant claims or the expert may knock you down on the one thing that you fail to refute.

I've been informed that the person that represented the Respondent is someone that recently lost a High Court case involving a contentious domain name. I also believe that the person is a member of this forum and, in any case, it is not my business to identify him. With all due respect to both the Respondent and his representative; the panel would have known full well who both of you are. Asking this individual to represent you in this appeal could, I feel, only have done you a disservice. I have no personal dislike or issue with either of you two. However don't you think the panel would have thought the choice of representation, considering previous matters, to be a little strange?

olebean

I am interested to see what Beasty has to say on this issue, I hope he is able to compment.....

Beasty

Olebean, you will no doubt understand that (at this time) I am unable to comment in any way on this matter.

olebean

Beast

Lets hope at some stage you are in a position to comment further...