|
A
common complaint
about ICANN's Uniform Domain
Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP)
process is that decisions handed
down by UDRP panels or individual
arbitrators can be wildly
inconsistent if not downright
inexplicable. A perfect reminder of
that came today when we got an
interesting domain sale report
(more on that in a moment) on the
same morning that Michael Berkens
published an article
at TheDomains.com about a
troubling UDRP decision involving EasyTrain.com
that went in favor of London's
easyGroup Limited.
|
Judge
image from Bigstock
|
|
Michael
noted that the decision by a lone arbitrator,
William R. Towns, appeared to
give EasyGroup the right to every
domain containing the word "easy"
that the company holds now or may
decide to trademark at any time in
the future.
EasyGroup
has claimed the rights to terms like
EasyTrain, EasyCar, EasyGym and many
others including EasyHotel.
That last one brings us to the new
domain sale I mentioned above. This
morning I got a documented sale
report (including a copy of the
completed Escrow.com transaction)
from Pascal De Vries showing
that he sold EasyHotel.ch (a
Swiss country code domain) last week
for $21,800. De Vries said
the buyer, represented by an agent
from a negotiating company, was none
other than easyGroup IP Licensing
Ltd!
|
But
wait a minute. If EasyGroup
really owns the rights to
EasyHotel, as they claim, why
did they cough up so much
money to buy this name? It
turns out that easyGroup had
tried to get this domain from
De Vries once before, back in
2005, but not by offering to
buy it but by trying to |
|
Cart
full of cash image from
Bigstock |
take
it through a UDRP
filed against De Vries.
The problem was, easyGroup lost
that one (for a variety of
reasons, including the fact
that De Vries had a Swiss
trademark of his own on the
term).
So,
nine years later,
easyGroup had to part with
some cold hard cash to get the
domain. Of course, they may be
able to acquire more
"Easy" domains like
EasyTrain.com through
UDRP (this one made easy for
them by the fact the
respondent never answered the
claim) but they can't always
count on a slam dunk as they
learned the hard way -
and as we have seen over the
years from decisions that
often defy common sense.
|
|
