When you say “as long as the owner pays there property tax there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.” That is the whole point of the LH.com story, and our point of concern – we believe it to be generic – however there is apparently something people can do about it in some cases successfully.

This is a bad one but not the only case decided against a domain holder that should have been decided in their favour.

I wont post again and let you have the last word since this isn’t a forum but your blog

A majority of the 85% of decisions that go against the domain holders is because a vast majority of these are no brainer trademark violations.

So the 85% is a deceiving stat. You have to take out all the really crap cases (most of which are not even defended) from the cases where there is real question of infringement.

Here are some decisions for the week of Feb 28: (Just picked that week by random):

Liberty League International got
libertyleaguetruth.com

Baylor University got
baylormedicalcenteratirving.com, baylorhealthcaregarland.com,
baylormedicalcenterhospital.com, baylorregionalmedicalcenter.com,
baylorcollegemedicine.com, baylorschools.org, baylorbanks.com

Advanta Corp. got
advantahome.net

Diners Club International got
sydneydinersclub.com, sydneydinerscard.com

McKee Foods Kingman, (owner of little debbie brand) got
littledebbie.info

State Farm Mutual got
statefarmrecruiting.com

Shutterfly.com got
hutterfly.com, chutterfly.com, dhutterfly.com,
hsutterfly.com, hutterfly.com, sgutterfly.com,
shetterfly.com, shhutterfly.com, shotterfly.com,
shtuterfly.com, shurterfly.com, shutherfly.com,
shutrerfly.com, shuttarfly.com, shutteefly.com,
shutteerfly.com, shutterefly.com, shutterffly.com,
shutterfli.com, shutterflly.com, shutterflt.com,
shutterfy.com, shutterrfly.com, shuttertfly.com,
shuttetfly.com, shuttetrfly.com, shuttherfly.com,
shuttirfly.com, shuttorfly.com, shuttrefly.com,
shuttrerfly.com, shuttrrfly.com, shutturfly.com,
shuttwrfly.com, shutyerfly.com, shuutterfly.com,
shuyterfly.com, shytterfly.com, sjutterfly.com,
sshutterfly.com, suhtterfly.com, wshutterfly.com

Bank of America got
bankofamrica.com, bankofamericacreditcards.com,
abnkofamerica.com, bankofamercica.com, bankofamarika.com,
bankocamerica.com, bank-of-america-mortgage-loans.info,
bankaamerica.com, bankofamericamyaccount.com, bankofamrcia.com,
bankofamiraca.com, bankofamirca.com, bankofcamerica.com

The vast majority of cases that go against the domain holder are horrible cases that you or I would vote for the trademark holder. They involve in domain containing a famous mark or instances where the domain holder owned tens or hundreds of miss spellings, or typo variations of trademarks.

If every name was developed I agree that the trademark holder would have a harder time getting the domain, but this is just not going to happen for those owning thousands of domains.

Again there is no law against owing thousands of domains.

Your point that people do not like those who own vacant land when there is housing needed for people is just my point, you may not like it, but its perfectly legal and like it or not, as long as the owner pays there property tax there isn’t anything anyone can do about it.

You say “Don’t fall for it”

We’re talking about the REALITY of domains being taken away from domainers. Yes fight, but accept that domainers are losing domains on mass. I’ve lost many I should have been allowed to keep.

You say “This was simply a bad decision.”

85% of decisions go against domainers – they may very well all be bad decisions – but rather than just say these decisions are wrong, and lose domains on mass, we need to fight and also to ask ourselves why.

Maybe it shouldn’t be but in reality land ownership is a different situation, when was the last time somebody made an IP claim against somebody and successfully took a piece of land.

There are reasons that 85% of cases are decided against the existing domain holder. Pretend or, “don’t fall for it” if you like. That won’t change thousands of domains being taken from existing holders, we need to fight, AND look at why these decisions are being made this way.

Parking pages and mass domain hoarding are not seen to be productive for the internet in general. Many non domainers see it as the equivalent of buying a house and leaving it vacant, when there is a housing shortage (where 2 people want the same house) On one hand they have somebody who wants the house and will probably use it well, and on the other they have somebody who want to have 10,000′s of houses and not use any of them.

This non-domainer perception is why the IP laws continue to be “bent” as far away from domainers rights as they can be. Those with foresight just see this situation getting worse.

It is a battle between domain holders and trademark holders, but the general internet community thinks they have more to gain from the trademark holders owning a couple of domains each and developing the majority well than domainers owning 10,000’s of parking pages each.

Like it or not if every domain was developed into what people would consider worthwhile sites then trademark claims would carry much less weight.

Greg

Don’t fall for it.

In this country you are allowed to own all the vacant lots you want.

You are allowed to own all the undeveloped real estate you want.

There is no law or requirement that you build on it.

No one can make you build on it.

You are allowed to own all the major art work you want.

There is no law that you have to display it or lend it to a museum so others may see it.

There is no law that says you cannot own all the domains you want.

There is no law that says you have to develop them.

There is a law that says you cannot infringe on famous trademarks.

But LH.com is not a famous trademark.

This was simply a bad decision.

The airlines does not use this mark. They do not use it in its advertising, they do not even use it once anywhere on their site.

Other than including it in their flight numbers, I see no connection to the very generic two letter term.

We have to fight all attempts to treat domains differently than any other asset.

Don’t fall for it.

Looking from the perspective of the general internet users experience, domainers holding up premium domains with parking pages is NOT seen to be in the overall interest.

It is the perceived hoarding that fuels these biased decisions. If the names were seen to be productively used and not just taken out of use it would go a long way to protecting rightfully owned IP.

If in 10 years the name will still likely be a parking page, they will try to bend the rules as much as possible to stop this “waste of resources” that could benefit the general internet community.

The answer is for domainers in general to make efforts to develop good names into what is seen to be productive use, and to make available for sale (when a top offer comes along)

In reality it’s those who very rarely sell and very rarely develop who help put everybody’s domains at higher risk.

Agree 100% with you.

They had an extremely strong case and to get bounced out like they did, was an extremely bad showing.

Moreover they allowed the panel to basically make up new rules as they went along.

Terrible

According to attorney’s who practice in this area,
A US Federal Court Decision will not be binding per se on the UDRP panels but will be cited by them.

However it may be 1-2 years or more to this case gets heard and a ruling is made.