Standing at the Threshold: Should Complaints Built on Later Trademarks Fail at the First Element? The Complaint was denied unanimously and Reverse Domain Name Hijacking was declared unanimously. The Domain Name was registered in 1996. The Complainant’s only registered trademark was filed in September 2025. On any view of the Policy, the Complainant could not succeed. What makes this decision …
A Dissent That Never Asks the Targeting Question – vol. 6.36
A Dissent That Never Asks the Targeting Question The majority opinion is a disciplined application of settled principles and requires little elaboration. That is the Policy working as designed. The dissent is another matter, and it warrants careful attention precisely because the approach it embodies surfaces from time to time and must be answered each time it does. Nowhere in the …
A Default Is Not a Verdict: Panel Research Done Right – vol 6.35
A Default Is Not a Verdict: Panel Research Done Right Default cases are where the Policy’s discipline is particularly important, because there is no respondent to point out what a complaint fails to prove. This decision shows a Panel proceeding with conspicuous care in exactly that situation, and the result is a model of how an undefended complaint against a …
Three-Letter Domain Value Cannot Overcome Direct Evidence of Targeting – vol. 6.34
Three-Letter Domain Value Cannot Overcome Direct Evidence of Targeting The Respondent relied on a principle familiar from numerous UDRP decisions: A short three-letter domain name may have substantial inherent value independent of any particular trademark, and acquiring such a domain for that inherent value can constitute a bona fide registration. The difficulty for the Respondent was not the validity of …
Complainant Pays More for UDRP than for Purchase, Gets RDNH Instead – vol. 6.33
Complainant Pays More for UDRP than for Purchase, Gets RDNH Instead Interestingly, it appears that the Complainant requested permission to file a supplementary before actually filing the supplementary filing. This is indeed the way it should be done though it rare for complainants to take this approach. Indeed, this was one of the issues identified in the WIPO-ICA UDRP Review …
A Weak Response Is Not a Substitute for the Complainant’s Burden – vol. 6.32
View recording here Cultural Heritage & Mythology in Domain Name Disputes: Legitimate Interests, Bad Faith, and Targeting by Bart Van Besien What happens when a domain name is identical to a trademark, but the same word is also the name of a mythological figure or otherwise forms part of cultural heritage? Both trademarks and domain names frequently draw on names …
Perfume Company Tries to Take P&G’s Domains Through the UDRP; Gets RDNH Instead – vol 6.31
Perfume Company Tries to Take P&G’s Domains Through the UDRP; Gets RDNH Instead This is a well-reasoned decision that reaches the right result, and the RDNH finding in particular is a model of how the analysis should be done, grounded squarely in what the Complaint itself disclosed. Our one substantive observation concerns the element the Panel chose not to decide. …
Panel: UDRP Panels Are Not Pricing Boards – vol. 6.30
Panel: UDRP Panels Are Not Pricing Boards This is an exemplary decision, and one that domain name investors and their counsel will be citing for some time. The three-member Panel, presided over by Professor Frederick Abbott, addressed each of the Complainant’s theories directly and disposed of them with a clarity that leaves little room for doubt. The result is a …
When .AI Cuts Both Ways: Applying UDRP Perspectives on Targeting – vol. 6.29
From AI-Generated Complaints to Hallucinated Precedents and AI-Generated Evidence: Emerging Issues in Domain Name Disputes Article by Mr. Stefaan Meuwissen, Knowledge Lawyer I.P. at Hogan Lovells International LLP Artificial intelligence has become a routine feature of proceedings under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Both complainants and respondents now use AI to draft pleadings, identify legal arguments, generate or …
Chronological Barrier Defeats French Real Estate Firm Over 25-Year-Old Surname Domain – vol. 6.28
Chronological Barrier Defeats French Real Estate Firm Over 25-Year-Old Surname Domain The chronology in this case was dispositive, and the Panel treated it accordingly. The Respondent registered the disputed Domain Name in July 2000, fourteen years before the Complainant obtained its first trademark registration in 2014. Under WIPO Overview 3.1, section 3.8.1, where a domain name is registered before a …