A single panelist at the World Intellectual Property Organization denied the UDRP complaint against the Escapade.com domain name. The decision was published today, with Marina Perraki serving as the panelist. The decision was not a surprise given the domain registrant’s long-held trademark. What surprised me was the asking price for this one word .com domain name.
Here’s an excerpt from the discussion about bad faith registration and usage:
“As regards the amount of USD 65,000 that Respondent acknowledges was requested in order to sell the Domain Name, the Panel finds that the amount as such is not enough to establish bad faith, in view of the time of registration of the Domain Name, the fact that some use was made of the brand name “Escapade” and the explanation provided by Respondent, that the amount reflects the giving up of the reactivation of the brand name “Escapade” by Respondent.”
In my opinion, $65,000 for a domain name like Escapade.com is a very good deal for an end user buyer. If I was the owner of Escapade.com, I would probably price it considerably higher than this, knowing that similar one word .com domain names have sold for well into the six figure range.
If I were the domain registrant here, I would probably increase my asking price for having to deal with the stress of a UDRP.
Ultimately, the decision did not come down to the asking price, but even if that was going to be the deciding factor, it would have gone in favor of the registrant. I think the panelist should have considered a finding of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking, but I do not see any discussion of that.
