max_rk

Soon after year 2011 began I received DRS compliant. I was surprises because I had contact with complainant and I believed they would come to their senses to do a deal. Obviously they had different ideas. When I red the compliant it struck me for being so weak. It was simply written by director of the company who is ex professional dancer and has no legal qualifications or good understanding of DRS. I knew already that I had good case but, the weakness of compliant made everything much easier.

Complainant did not say why my registration was abusive but, went to say how great they are and because of so, my domain has received number of visitors and that I have targeted their Google ads. They provided almost no evidence to support their claims. The work for the response began. When we started digging a lot of stuff came out, their brand did not appear to be so solid as they have claimed. My case looked stronger with every finding. We also asked Sedo (because domain was parked at Sedo) to provide answers to questions on how Sedo domain parking works. Sedo kindly offered to help and were able to confirm that I did not change keywords to target the complaint’s links. They also confirmed that I would not be able to target compliant any other way than with the keywords. It was all down to complainant for their links appearing on my parking page. They also answered few other question which helped me to prove that I have not taken advantage of the situation. We also used a lot of quotes from myspace.co.uk and oasis.co.uk decisions to make further arguments.

The main thing what worried us was the numbers provided by complainant. Its possible that the Expert would have taken notice and we thought we don’t want that risk. Because of the Sedo help - we were able to put strong arguments to discredit compliant and all the numbers.

Once I submitted response, I was sure that that complaint received nasty surprise. They sought professional help and their reply was written by the lawyer. Needless to say, most of the stuff would not be considered by the Expert because it was newly raised issues to which I had no ability to reply.

When the mediation has started the feeling of defeat of the complaint was obvious even though they started negotiating over the settlement figure. Finally they agreed to my offer and we made the transfer. They wanted to get over this as quickly as possible. You won’t get any points for guessing who were the winners and the losers in this. The complainant is the big loser. They spent in terms of money of about 4 times more than I would have sold the domain to them in the beginning . The winners are the lawyers who received tidy fees for their work.

I have been involved in one way or anther in domain disputes over the decade. Some people who are involved only can be described as idiots with big egos. Because so, the IP lawyers make good living out of all this.

If the complainant had any brains in this case all this could be resolved quickly at the fraction of the cost and without fuss.

So for those who are thinking to protect their rights I give you few rules to follow:

1. Get your facts right.
2. Talk to the registrant, try to agree to a deal. Be nice and polite.
3. See rule no 2.
4. If you making DRS complaint, do make sure the complaint is a solid as a house of bricks. Provide credible evidence.
5. Think about the mediation, stay focused on the matter and not your ego.
6. Remember - once you click on DRS submit, you are not in control. Even if you decide not to pay for the Expert decision, responded can and will pay for Expert decision, which can lead to the damage to your brand and credibility.

If you are domain registrant/respondent here are few rules for you.

1. Get your facts right
2. Respond on timely manner. Be nice and polite.
3. See rule no 2.
4. If you receive DRS compliant - write the response. Only cover the issues raised in the compliant. Make sure your response is solid and with right evidence.
5. Think about the mediation, stay focused on it and not your ego or greed.
6. Don’t be afraid if case goes to Expert decision, if you get to this point - you have to be sure your case it good. If complaint does not pay for Expert decision, ask the complaint to sing the document confirming that they will not file another DRS (or anything else) in the future. If they don’t sing that, consider paying for the Expert decision. This way you would add credibility to yourself. The successive case will act as a deterrent for other opportunistic punters.

If you don’t know what you are doing, get right advice. Also consider the fact that some lawyers are biased - for their own good.

Thanks for reading,
Max

invincible

So Complainant was claiming that your use of the domain name at issue had deliberately targetted their brand/business.

[snip]

I appreciate what you had to do here. I've worked with more than one Registrant where we've collectively had to obtain "evidence" from either parking companies or DNS providers to try to demonstrate that something claimed by a Complainant wasn't actually the case/could not have been the case. The problem for Respondents can be that when a Complainant claims something in their complaint, and provides some detail including perhaps a few screenshots, and the Respondent knows that the Complainant is either confused, has been misled somehow, or is blatantly lying, it is still very difficult to disprove their claims. Respondent can state "they're not true" but how can a Respondent disprove the claims? As I was once told, by a former Independent Expert who is also a IP lawyer, "it is very difficult to prove a negative". One problem is getting hold of someone at the parking company or the DNS/host who is knowlegable enough to understand what you are asking and is prepared to write some correspondance stating that the claims made are false, especially given the time limit of a DRS response. I don't know how tight it was for you but hopefully you didn't experience too much difficulty.

I wonder if such companies should publish information for how domain registrants using their services can best contact them about these kind of issues, to receive a speedy response.

I imagine you were tempted to go to a decision in some respects but if you were happy to sell anyway, then mediation was that opportunity. I also only know of one case where a Respondent paid for a decision. Do you know of any?

Finally did you worry that when the Complainant saw your response, they might withdraw and resubmit something much better but with the assistance of your response? I know of one DRS when thay happened and the Complainant came off worse from the Expert at the decision stage, but the Complainant can do this and so it might not always be looked on badly by an Expert.

[snip]

max_rk

In my case complainant said that his link on my parking page was up since year 200X and clicked X times. So we provided many screenshots from way back showing that complainant’s links not on the page. Also my click number at Sedo were bit lower then X. Considering complaint’s link was on the parking page as complaint has claimed, there were also 9 other links on the page, X can't be true. Simply nothing adds up.

Also we asked to disregard the X because it was out of context, without evidence/can not be confirmed.

To prove the negative is hard to do but, the complaint has to be careful what he is trying to claim (rule 1). In one case I saw pile of exhibits about 30cm high. It was made of cuts out from news papers, magazines, guide books. They had catalogues, booklets, flyers all sorts. The company’s annual turnover of £150 mil so it was sizable business.

They argued for their unregistered brand rights.

With some SEO software we were able to find other website of the complainant where they used their own brand name in clearly generic context. All that pile of 30 cm exhibits became useless junk. They settled in mediation.


Sedo guys were very helpful and quick. Obviously they have done their compliance before they put anything on "paper". Good practice with DRS is to start working on response as soon as possible.

I think so too that parking companies could write about how their system works to avoid disputes.




Well, I must tell you that as respondent I have paid for DRS decision. If i went to lengths to write the response, I don’t want all that goodness go waist and risk another DRS. As well as to defend my domain name I want other opportunists to take notice.

If domain/case is good it will be even better after the decision.

aZooZa

Don't park these. There two words to save so many. Engage brain.

invincible

I don't think this particular one-liner of yours is that informative. Without knowing the domain name at issue, it's not possible to make this comment informatively. I could example a domain name that is parked with results relevant to a legitimate, generic product where there is a TM in practically every possible TM category. However those Rights Holders cannot touch the domain name because it is being used fairly and legitimately. If you're competant and know what you're doing, parking is fine and legitimate. The Registrant is entitled to monetise their domain name fairly, and they shouldn't automatically be scared away from parking as long as they do their best to optimise away.

aZooZa

Sometimes, 'one-liners' are useful in terms of reducing verbal diarrhoea into just a single stiff log.

invincible

Sometimes they are, and sometimes it's very easy to post a one-liner but not so easy to write a more detailed response with justification of opinions expressed. I often wonder if many of the one-liner respondents could stand up to reasoned and more detailed critique. Of course there are only so many hours in the day!