UDRPs Filed on WI.com and IEC.com

I was looking through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) website this afternoon, and I found what look to be two troubling UDRP filings. WIPO Case D2015-1469 is a UDRP for the three letter IEC.com domain name. WIPO Case D2015-1470 is a UDRP for the two letter WI.com domain name. Both of these domain names are clearly high value assets.

The registrant for IEC.com is listed as IEC Communications Ltd. The domain name has an under construction message at the top of the landing page with PPC links below. The complainant in this case is listed as IEC – International Electrotechnical Commission.

The registrant for WI.com is Media Options, a high end domain investment and brokerage firm that has sold millions of dollars worth of domain names. WI.com currently resolves to a Media Options landing page. The complainant in this UDRP is listed as Brian Fera. I believe this is the first UDRP filing against a domain name owned by Media Options.

It is unfortunate to see these two high value domain names subject to a UDRP proceeding. The domain owners are going to be forced to spend money on legal fees defending their right to own domain names like these. I will be keeping my eye on these two UDRP cases.

Updates:

The WI.com UDRP complaint was denied.

The IEC.com UDRP complaint was denied.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

9 COMMENTS

  1. Filing a UDRP has become the new patent squatting, where someone files an extremely vague patent and sues a company for financial gain. I’m sure they will attach RDNH to these cases, and hopefully the find in favor of the respondents. There NEEDS to be be stiffer penalties for RDNH besides the ones that exist today.

    • Dr. Fera cannot win his UDRP because his trademark is WICOM, not WI. The trademark term has to be in full left of the dot. Having a trademark across the dot does not count. It’s a shame that Andrew has been victimized by Dr. Fera and his misplaced since of entitlement to a domain name for which he holds no trademark rights.

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