A UDRP was filed at the National Arbitration Forum against the Sparc.Energy domain name, which was acquired in an expiry auction this past May for $262.17. In a decision that I think could have gone either way, the three member UDRP panel ruled in favor of the domain investor who owned the domain name. The domain name was successfully defended by attorney Jason Schaeffer of ESQWire.com.
The complainant, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), uses the term “SPARC” for a fusion energy project, and it has a US trademark for the term. CFS pointed to the website on the sparc.energy domain name, which featured fusion-energy news and included stories about CFS. It tried to convince the panel that “registering a domain name primarily for the purpose of reselling it for profit is evidence of bad faith registration.”
At one time, the complainant owned the domain name, let it expire, and it had been picked up by another party before it expired and was auctioned again.
The respondent explained that he’s a longtime domain investor who focuses on acquiring domain names related to electric vehicles and energy. He bought sparc.energy because it looked like a brandable domain name combining the word “sparc” (a play on the “spark” keyword) with the .energy extension. The content for the website was generated by a free AI tool offered by the domain registrar, without input from the registrant.
I thought the registrant’s response did a very good job of fully explaining why the domain name was acquired and listed for sale, in a way that showed it wasn’t done to target the complainant.
The panel noted that “sparc” is a term that is widely used by many companies and that CFS didn’t show its mark was well-known outside its niche industry. The panel also said that just because a domain investor asks a high price after being contacted by a company, it doesn’t mean the domain name was registered in bad faith. I was surprised the panel gave deference to the registrant’s explanation about the AI-generated content because panels often hold the complainant responsible for the content displayed, even if they don’t have full control over it.
In reading the contentions from both parties, I could easily have seen this decision go favor of the complainant, if not for the extensive defense put forth by the registrant’s counsel to convince the panel of the right to own this domain name as an investment. Deference is often given to complainants, particularly when the domain name is of the brandable nature with a term that matches a trademark. In this case, the panel gave the benefit of the doubt to the domain investor.
