Crown Acquisitions, Inc, won control of the domain name CrownAcquisitions.com in a UDRP this week and although its not a headline type of domain I think it’s a really poor decision by the one member panel of Houston Putnam Lowry, “Chartered Arbitrator”, which contains language that should concern any domain investor.
“The Complainant uses the CROWN ACQUISITIONS, INC. mark in connection with the business of real estate renovation and restoration of buildings, namely rehabilitation, refurbishment, and renovation of high-risk urban commercial and residential properties. Complainant has registered the CROWN ACQUISITIONS, INC. mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”) (Reg. No. 3,570,118, filed June 15, 2006, registered February 3, 2009).”
Respondent registered the corporation Crown Acquisitions, Inc. with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations in 2006.
The domain name was registered on September 2, 2006.
First lets take a look at some of the representation and statements made by the Complainant:
The domain name CrownAcquisitions.com is just one of an astonishing 811 domain names owned by Respondent.
More astonishing still is that nearly all of the 811 domain names – which, according to DomainIQ.com, are valued at over $500,000 – are undeveloped, and each domain simply results in a webpage that provides information on how to purchase the domain from Respondent. Despite the fact that Respondent is, without question, a textbook cybersquatter,
Respondent falsely states in Section 4(b)(i)(1) that Respondent registered the Disputed Domain before Complainant filed its trademark application for “Crown Acquisitions” with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). The truth is that Complainant filed its trademark application with the USPTO on June 15, 2006 – approximately three (3) months before Respondent registered the Disputed Domain, which was in September 2006.
In this regard, Respondent cannot plausibly claim that it had no knowledge of Complainant’s use of the Crown Acquisitions trademark in commerce at the time it registered the Disputed Domain.
At a minimum, Complainant’s filing of the Crown Acquisitions application with the USPTO in June 2006 placed Respondent on constructive notice of Complainant’s rights and, therefore, Respondent knew or should have known that Complainant was using the mark in commerce and claimed trademark rights thereto before it registered the Disputed Domain.
Based on this timing, Complainant suspects that Respondent learned of Complainant’s application with the USPTO and then registered the Disputed Domain for the sole purpose of attempting to sell the domain to Complainant.
Respondent concedes that from the time it registered the Disputed Domain in 2006 until 2011, there was no development or substantive use of the Disputed Domain, meaning that it was undoubtedly cyber-squatting for at least five years.
Even assuming that the Disputed Domain was used for any commercial endeavor – which it was not – Respondent admits that the Disputed Domain has not had any substantive content since 2015. The limited use of the Disputed Domain for only the flash presentation cited in the Response from 2011 through 2015 fails to explain at all, or support any good faith basis for Respondent’s registration of the Disputed Domain back in September 2006, or anytime thereafter.
Now here is what the one member panel had to say:
Respondent’s web page was a dynamic parking page offering links to a variety of unrelated businesses. A respondent’s failure to make any active use of a domain does not constitute a bona fide offering of goods or services pursuant to Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) or a legitimate noncommercial or fair use pursuant to Policy ¶ 4(c)(iii).
“Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) provides a respondent can prove rights to a domain name if “before any notice to [Respondent] of the dispute, [Respondent’s] use of, or demonstrable preparations to use, the domain name or a name corresponding to the domain name in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services.” Respondent claims it was planning to use the domain name in 2007. That was nine years ago. Those plans have obviously not come to any kind of fruition within any reasonable period of time (bearing in mind the domain name was registered a decade ago and it still isn’t being used). Those plans certain didn’t give ANY kind of a clue about Respondent’s business. This Panel still has no idea what Respondent does. While Respondent may have used the domain name at some time to publish a cute video with no particular meaningful content (including Respondent’s name or Respondent’s business), that alone does not create any kind of rights under Policy ¶ 4(c).
The Panel finds Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii) satisfied.”
“This Panel finds Respondent offered to sell the disputed domain name to the world at large. Complainant has not provided evidence to support its claim the price exceeded Respondent’s out of pocket costs. However, the Panel is willing to infer that fact because Respondent didn’t deny it and Respondent owns roughly 811 essentially undeveloped domain names.”
If Respondent isn’t selling them for more than Respondent’s out of pocket costs, then Respondent would not be able to stay in business (which Respondent has done for more than a decade). Respondent’s actions constitute bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(b)(i).
Complainant claims Respondent failed to respond to Complainant’s cease and desist letter. The reason Respondent failed to respond is the latter was returned “unclaimed unable to forward.” This means Respondent has not kept its WHOIS information up to date. Given Respondent can easily do this for all 811 domains with a single command and given Respondent’s familiarity with the WHOIS, it seems as though Respondent has deliberately failed to provide accurate WHOIS information. In a commercial context, this gives rise to a rebuttable presumption Respondent has registered and uses the domain name in bad faith. Respondent has failed to rebut that presumption even though a response was submitted.
In my opinion a very bad decision for domain investors.
Coincidentally, this was the name of the business that Pierce Brosnan had in the movie “The Thomas Crown Affair” .
Well I wonder if the Respondent is going to take the matter to Court ? Unless they do then this decision may hav repercussions for others in future.
worrisome
Is this something that ICA is geared to help with?
I thought there were previous decisions that said domain investing was a valid business? This system is a joke. Unfortunately it looks like the owner will have to go to a real court. As long as he wasn’t running competitors ads there should be no problem. Crazy logic??
“Hey buddy that oceanfront lot you haven’t developed in 20 years, I WANT IT FOR NOTHING. ” This type of logic shows how insane some of these people are.
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Lazy defending. Didn’t rebut C&D nor pay for three member panel.
Panelists will keep straying until the UDRP policy explicitly covers trading in domains and non-use, other dispute policies have those backstops (UK DRS).
Even then the rogue and corrupt ones will continue to deprive rightful registrants.
That’s what happens if you don’t spend the money and hire John B.
How can we influence the creation of better regulations to protect the rights of domainers?
Regardless of the wording of the ruling and how the decision was arrived at, I must be the only reader who thinks the decision was the right one.
As domain registrations go, it was a blatant squat of a domain in which the respondent had no rights and infringed on another’s.
The fact of whether those rights were registered with the USPTO (or other regional trademark offices) at the very second the domain was registered is not the be-all and end-all of the UDRP process.
Rights don’t even have to be registered at all, contrary to what others might suggest is their understanding.
A correct decision.
Yes you must be the only troll in here. Correct assumption.
Well I think they are right that they registered the name in order to sell it to the complainant. Therefore it is not entirely surprising that this domain was lost. The decision itself was not so much the problem as the language that they used.
I am not a lawyer but I think the problem is that they seem to assume that not developing a domain is not fair use. A strange assumption because a large part of the zone is not developed or does not resolve. Likewise up to 30% of registrants use WHOIS privacy.
Personally I think this is a very narrow interpretation.
So according to the logic of some panelists most domain registrations in the world are not fair use or are not legitimate.
There is no law or policy in place that says you have to make use of a domain name that you have registered.
The registration agreement does not state you can’t register domain names in order to sell them. Neither is there a law against it.
There is nothing that says even registering 10 million domain names and offering them for sale is not permitted.
The only thing that is not permitted is to register a TM or a domain similar to a TM in bad faith in order to profit from it or harm the brand in an other way.
The thing that matters is if the registrant acted in bad faith. The fact that he is holding many domains and not developing them itself is irrelevant. It can only be used to infer that he is an active domain seller or that he has a history of registering TM, if he had a history of similar registrations.
Please show me a law/policy that says parking, trading or selling of domains is not permitted. There is none. The only thing that is covered is TM infringement.
Or do you believe my interpretation is not correct?
Clearly if you read the entire case you would not have posted this.
There are over 100 crown acquisitions across the world. The complainant incorporated 20 years after the first crown acquisitions and came after many other active corporations.
Also, the respondent did not try to sell the name to the complainant. The complainant alluded to it but later said they did not communicate in anyway with the respondent proving their initial claim was false.
Your response is based only off assumptions whereas the facts of the case show by no stretch of the imagination should this name have been transferred. There was no mistake on defense, the panelist made a huge error and should be the one sued. Apparently, looking at another comment he was actually sued before for bad rulings.
We need this panelist off. The domain owner needs to sue to correct this horrible judgement. I’d chip in just to make sure he does. There needs to be consequences for judgments like this to both the panelist and the filer.
I have a friend that invest in land to sell to developers in the future at a high profit.
I guess he is also a blatant squatter.
Is this the same panelist Houston Putnam Lowry?
Owner Of Ruraliving.com A $7 Billion Company Loses UDRP On RuralLiving.com
http://www.thedomains.com/2014/07/02/owner-of-ruraliving-com-a-7-billion-company-loses-udrp-on-ruralliving-com/
Panel denied the complaint, but Panelist Houston Putnam Lowry filed a dissenting opinion, voting to transfer the domain to the Complainant.
Obviously, this panelist has a bias against domainers and favors anyone who might have any type of TM no matter when the TM was created.
Steve
There are a ton of decisions that say that holding a domain for investment even if it’s parked (as long as there are no links to the complainant or its competitors) is a valid business
That’s what I thought. I wonder why they are allowed to deviate 180 degrees from case to case. Makes the system and some of the panelists look like a joke.
yes- you do need a three member panel so that collectively all three can vet the case.
as crazy as it might seem – you need to be fair to the panelists as well – for nonsense some new panel might overlook – as was clearly this case.
Found this on the internet.
Houston Putnam Lowry gets a few mentions in the article
A move to protect older domain registrations in the UDRP?
http://www.domainarts.com/2013/05/15/a-move-to-protect-older-domain-registrations-in-the-udrp/
Interesting is the shoemart.com decision, in which the majority of the panelists denied the complaint yet Houston Putnam Lowry issued a dissent stating that he would have ordered the transfer of the shoemart.com domain in large part because he saw domain resellers as cybersquatters and domain reselling as violating the UDRP.
I wonder how he would view the very very large Corporate companies who also have bought up lot of domains and sit on them The UDRP no longer resembles what it was in the beginning when the intentions were genuine and honest. Now it is a tool for large company’s to take domains from legitimate owners for Zero $.
Whats this I read..jet.com sold for 3 billion bought by wal mart. Is that the same jet.com domain that was sold for 30 million dollars a while back. Every domainer thought it was bogus. m. berkins we need your follow up here.
I’ve never been involved in a UDRP, so I don’t know how the post-decision process works. Will GoDaddy or the respondent transfer the url to the complainant? Is there a time limit?
The case seems complex to me. Not sure why the Complainant didn’t just offer to purchase the domain, rather than pay the fees for the UDRP.
I don’t agree with the panelist’s remark per “astonishing 811 domains” owned by the Respondent. Sure, this is a lot. But that shouldn’t be relevant.
Also this: “Respondent registered the corporation Crown Acquisitions, Inc. with the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations in 2006.” (if the respondent did this, wouldn’t that signify an intent to use the URL —- fees, franchise tax fees, etc)
How UDRP panelists differ in their understanding of selling domains.
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/search/text.jsp?case=D2016-0653
“Selling of a domain name is a legitimate business unless it is done in bad faith. Demanding a high price (particularly in response to an inquiry begun by the mark owner) is not in itself bad faith since the registration of the Domain Name was legitimate and at no time was the Complainant targeted. The proper price for any domain name is determined by market forces and not the opinion of the Complainant or of a UDRP panel. The Respondent’s offer to sell the Domain Name and the price it demanded from the Complainant do not amount to bad faith.”