question UDRP question

[Mr. Holgrave]

Hi All,

Scenario:
Company wants to take away a 20 year old domain name (bought at expired auction) that they say infringed because it was parked for 1 day, and apparently served related ads during that day. It was then moved to a landing page stating that it was for sale via an offer. They send demand letter and give 7 days to hand it over or else, after making lowball offer that was rejected.
If the registrant decides to sell it to another person during that 7 days, does that domain name then get "washed"? Would selling it to someone else give the name a new lease on life without a parking mark against it? The name would not be immediately recognizable to probably 9/10 people by the way. I'm curious about the "chain" of responsibility in a situation like this.

Thanks

 

[Mr. Holgrave]

Hi All,

The name is KBCGroup.com You can see my landing page now. It used to belong to a Polish Internet service provider I think.

Before popping a landing page on it, I parked it along with 500 other names I have... for one day. Then sent them all to Uniregistry Market landing pages. The landing page said it was for sale and to make offer. I then got an offer of $500 Euros from a broker in Belgium. KBCGroup is also the name of a huge bank in Belgium. I said I wanted a better offer. Then a few days later I got a letter from their legal department telling me to hand it over. I offered to sell it for a small multiple of what I paid for it and they accepted. The terms have been agreed to on escrow.com and I am awaiting their wire transfer to go through. Nothing has been transferred yet.

I spoke with one of the top UDRP attorneys, and you would all know his name if I said it. I'd rather not for the sake of privacy. He said I could pay to fight this, but would likely lose. Despite the plausible use of the name as a cattle company, it was parked for a time and then offered for sale. This was done prior to putting up the landing page. I also put up the landing page the day I received the letter from them. It's the sum of the parts that make it look bad.

The argument against me would be that my intent was to sell it from the beginning or else I would have put up the landing page right away without parking it. Maybe I should change direction of the cows to be "leaving soon".

I think that this is a good early lesson in many ways. I didn't pay a lot for it (it's on namebio). Most likely the rest of you guys saw it as a hot potato when I didn't. I'm new, and was even newer then. I'm a fast learner fortunately! I've got a tshirt business and have had to sue for trademark infringement before. I know the IP world intimately. I've never lost.

Nothing I did was legally infringing; but as you all know, UDRP cases are a different beast. It's too early in my domaining career to get a mark against me. I'm in the ugly Christmas Sweater business so I don't need the distraction (Skip N' Whistle). Anyone want a Domain or Bitcoin theme Christmas sweater Seriously...I can print some!

I was a top bidder for Gradient.com by the way, the second to last day. I watched that auction like the last quarter of a Saints game. It was fun. So, as I put better names in my stable, it's best to pay the small tuition early on than to lose a 6 figure name in a bogus UDRP simply because of "this one time at band camp."

Lessons here? 1) Have your creative landing pages ready to go from day one. 2) Don't park a name unless you're prepared to lose it or go all the way to fight it. 3) Choose a favorite attorney before you actually need them. 4) Choose your battles.

Does anyone want to add any other points? Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble Gobble

 

[xynames]

Happy Thanks!

Most of what you wrote aside, if you are willing to sell it for not much, then that means it isn't worth more than that in your mind, so why fight over it.

You don't need an attorney to fight a UDRP and it would cost about $1000. just for them to file it, so I hope you sold it for more than that - a thousand or two would be their nuisance payment to you just to make the problem go away, not to mention attorney fees on their side.