Panelist uses strong language about fairness and deciding cases under the UDRP.
A recent Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) decision is a reminder of what the UDRP was created for, and what it wasn’t.
Textron Aviation Inc., maker of Beechcraft airplanes, filed the dispute against Atlantic Beechcraft Services over the domain name atlanticbeech .com*.
The airplane maker is an active filer of UDRPs, and it loses many of them, even being found guilty of reverse domain name hijacking.
The losing cases are filed against companies that are using the domains in a manner they view as legitimate, such as offering parts or services for planes.
Textron may have legitimate trademark disputes with these domain registrants, but UDRP is not the right forum to settle these matters. UDRP was created to handle clear-cut cases of cybersquatting, not trademark use beefs.
There were many interesting aspects to the instant case, including Textron communicating with the domain owner via its @atlanticbeech .com email address to sell parts to it.
Panelist Karen J. Bernstein noted that there were many open questions in this case, and I appreciated some of her language. I particularly appreciate this conclusion:
In addition, it would be fundamentally unfair to reach a conclusion that the Domain Name be transferred away from the Respondent, who has been operating a business for over 23 years and has been using the Domain Name to operate its business for over 12 years without affording the parties the opportunity to exchange documents, cross-examine witnesses, and present robust arguments on substantive issues that may be weighed and resolved in a court of law.
* I generally separate the TLD from the domain when I don’t want it to autolink in certain media. In this case, the domain owner indicated it has lost control of the domain, so it’s unclear how it might be used in the future.
Source: https://domainnamewire.com/
