According to a blog post on Facebook’s corporate blog, the social network company filed a lawsuit against Namecheap. The suit was filed because there were domain names registered at Namecheap under Whois privacy proxy that allegedly infringed on Facebook’s trademarks. The blog post was written by Christen Dubois, Director and Associate General Counsel, IP Litigation at Facebook.
Here’s an excerpt from the blog post outlining the lawsuit:
Secaucus, New Jersey is a relatively small town that is close in proximity to New York City. While looking at UDRPSearch.com this afternoon, I noticed the Town of Secaucus filed a UDRP against the SecaucusNJ.org domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization. It is WIPO Case D2020-0509.
From the looks of it, this does not appear to be a typical UDRP filing. In looking through Screenshots.com, it appears that this was a developed website, and I believe it was operated by the town of Secaucus. A Google search also shows the town operates the matching .gov domain name for its website – SecaucusNJ.gov. It is unclear whether the town operated two distinct websites, and if so, for how long.
I try to monitor UDRP filings involving domain names that appear to be generic terms. The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) filed a UDRP against the InvestEase.com domain name, and the UDRP caught my eye because the “invest ease” term seems pretty generic to my eyes. Cherise Valles, the sole panelist on this WIPO UDRP (Case No. D2019-2803) ruled in favor of the complainant, and I think this was the right decision.
A valuable three letter .com domain name came under fire via UDRP, but the respondent prevailed. AVK.com was subject of a UDRP at the Czech Arbitration Court (CAC) in a dispute filed by a company called AVK Holding A/S. The panel ruled this was a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH), and the complainant will retain the domain name. The registrant was represented by attorney Zak Muscovitch.
This is the second time the complainant filed a UDRP against the domain name, which has been registered to the same entity, Best Web Limited, since 2003. According to UDRPSearch.com, the first case was also denied, although a RDNH finding was not made in that decision.
From my perspective, the biggest take away from this decision was the language the three-member panel used while discussing the RDNH finding:
A UDRP was recently filed against the valuable 3 letter .com domain name, UAX.com. The UDRP was filed at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the decision was published this morning. The panel found in favor of the domain name registrant, and also found that this was a case of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH).
Not only do I think this was the right decision, but I also think there is some helpful language for domain investors that can be referenced in a future UDRP defense or to head off a UDRP filing.
In November of 2019, DAE.com expired and was sold via GoDaddy Auctions for $126,000. According to UDRPSearch.com, a UDRP was just filed against this high value domain name at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The case is WIPO case number D2020-0041.
The buyer of DAE.com chose to register the domain name using GoDaddy’s privacy proxy service, so the current registrant is not publicly known. It does not appear the domain name has been put into use yet, as the domain name resolves to a default GoDaddy landing page at the time of publication. Assuming it was an end user buyer, this is not surprising considering the search engine and marketing ramifications of a domain name rebranding.
