Trend in Default Cases at NAF

[jberryhill]

It seems that even some of the "tougher" NAF panelists have gained some enlightenment after seeing enough cases. This week brings four NAF decisions in which the Respondent did not reply, but the complaint was denied anyway:

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/338377.htm

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/333070.htm

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/333046.htm

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/339605.htm

Two of these decisions were made by Carolyn Marks Johnson, who seems to have eased off considerably after having her freebies.com UDRP decision thoroughly lambasted in a subsequent court proceeding.

 

[anony]

Hello John,

Your thread just made me think of this question:

Q: What is the trend (in terms of %) when a compalint has been denied for Default/NoReply cases (in last 3 months or so)?

Thanks always.

Anony

 

[jberryhill]

Q: What is the trend (in terms of %) when a compalint has been denied for Default/NoReply cases (in last 3 months or so)?

It's a great question, since nobody I know has compiled statistics lately. However, the raw numbers don't say much, since a lot of UDRP cases are no-brainers, and the UDRP was intended to be limited to situations where not much legal heavy lifting is required. In other words, if someone has registered twenty typos of an inherently-distinctive fanciful trademark, and there doesn't appear to be a good reason other than to capitalize on the trademark correctly spelled, then whether they lose that case has no bearing on the person who registers a dictionary word or descriptive term and is pointing it to PPC links or simply trying to re-sell it.

The last set of comprehensive numbers, based on the first year of decisions is here:
http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/roughjustice.pdf

I've been willing to pay for these sorts of numbers since then, but the last time I offered to pay someone for a rundown on contested three-letter domain outcomes, I didn't get any takers. Some folks prefer uninformed blather to doing actual research.

You can sort the decisions by date at the NAF www.arb-forum.com (click on domain disputes, and then decisions), and at WIPO http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/index-gtld.html .

Every now and then on dnforum, we used to post a list of pending cases and play "guess the outcome".

For example, looking at recently filed NAF cases, there are:

360817 wwwaccounttemps.com

366274 x-imation.com

363051 chryslerfinancialcanada.com

363984 capism.com

366270 bettendorfnews.com

366229 statefarms.info, statesfarm.com, statesfarm.info, statesfarm.net, statesfarm.org, statefarms.biz

366168 royalvelvet.com

366129 aarpdefensivedriver.com, aarpdefensivedriving.com

367084 aames.com

366170 martytaylorhomes.com

366169 nikefree.com

366278 ellsfargo.com

367122 waynedyer.com

366279 martinsurfacinginc.com

368458 jpcycle.com

367095 hyattvancouver.com

370700 metlifeppo.com, metlifehealthinsurance.com

--------------

Let's take, for example, chryslerfinancialcanada.com. Now, at www.chryslerfinancialcanada.ca you'll notice that Chrysler Financial Canada offers financial services in Canada. The .com goes to a Domainsponsor landing page which has links to, surprise, car loans and other financial services not offered by Chrysler Financial Canada.

Now, without straining too much, how do you think that domain dispute is going to turn out?

Also, it is entirely predictable that someone will come along and say, "But couldn't I register chryslerfinancialcanada.com in order to run a non-commercial web site critical of Chrysler Financial Canada?" Yah, maybe you could, but that is not what this registrant is doing with the domain name. This registrant appears to be making money off of the fact that some people will type "com" instead of "ca" when looking for Chrysler Financial Canada. Now, does it take two months and $1250 to figure that out?

 

[GeorgeK]

http://udrp.law.cornell.edu/udrp/advsearch.html should add a field for when the Respondent never replied.

 

[anony]

John,

Reading your response, it is quite clear that people who use domain-parking services such as DS/Fab/Sedo etc will lose domain in the even of a UDRP case because they are all making money from the landing page (even if it is just 50 cents a month or so).

Now my question is:

What will be the outcome of the UDRP decision if the website is actually critical of "chrysler financial canada" but it has goodle ads on it? In this case the registrant still makes money of the domain but it is not a pure parking page?

Thanks,

Anony

 

[dtobias]

Also, it is entirely predictable that someone will come along and say, "But couldn't I register chryslerfinancialcanada.com in order to run a non-commercial web site critical of Chrysler Financial Canada?"

In that case, it would make more sense to pick a more appropriate TLD like .org or .info.

 

[jberryhill]

Reading your response, it is quite clear that people who use domain-parking services such as DS/Fab/Sedo etc will lose domain in the even of a UDRP case because they are all making money from the landing page (even if it is just 50 cents a month or so).

Not necessarily. It might depend on the results that are begin generated by the lander.

http://www.arb-forum.com/domains/decisions/206309.htm
Complainant has not satisfied its burden of proof that Respondent has intentionally attempted to attract users by creating a likelihood of confusion. It is the finding of this Panel that the brief appearance of aviation links on Respondent’s Web sites was automatically provided by a pay-per-click search engine provider and was not intended by Respondent.

If the point is to make money with a domain name like "chryslerfinancialcanada.com", then, there are not many facts that would change the outcome.