Not only was the Complainant’s transfer request denied, the company was found guilty of Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. It’s good to see cases like this go in favor of the Respondent, as we have seen too many generics lost recently (MBF.com, Aspire.com, and Aman.com are just a few examples in my opinion).
Unfortunately, because of the way the system was set-up, some people are almost encouraged to file a UDRP for $1,500 rather than attempt to buy the name for much more than this. The most recent sale price for FCC.com was $60,000 (from the decision), so it probably would have taken well over $100,000 for the owner to sell – although he develops his names. It’s harmful that the company was able to take a chance at receiving control of this great name for a mere $1,500 filing fee.
The Respondent had to spend quite a bit of money defending his rights to the domain name, but was smart in choosing John Berryhill to represent his rights. It’s too bad he can’t file a claim to recover his expenses for this Reverse Domain Name Hijacking attempt.
This is great for fcc.com. Thanks for covering this. I wonder what’s the avg lawyer fee is to fight a UDRP case like this?