btw is it just me or does it not seem odd that a panelist can also defend or bring these cases to udrp ?

It’s an old adage. As my interpretation of it goes, with enough time and pressure all thing change. Even the oceans will move and the mountains fade away. As true as that may be it still takes time and pressure. With enough pressure pushing back on the politics of this matter it will take that much more time for those who covet to get what “they” want, but in time they will get it; whether that be your domains or taxation over the internet and anything else for that matter. That is why you need to cherish and utilize to the fullest what you have now, because non of us is to know what the future holds.

My advice would be that if you want to look something up, look up the history of America’s Wild West and the railroad barons and land squatters. To me this is a mirror image of history repeating itself.

If you would cite a few of the leading cases related to this area, I’d be very interested in reading them.

It seems to me that when government is faced with record deficits and nowhere else turn for revenue, the environment for the perfect geo domain storm is in the brewing. With the shift we’re seeing in public policy, does the concept of “spreading the domains around” really sound so far fetched – even if it requires legislative meddling on the part of the courts? What’s more, didn’t the Snow bill tell us it’s not only the courts we have to worry about?

I’m not saying any of this will come to pass, but to move forward without taking these possibilities into account might also be a recipe for disaster.

The problem is and we have discussed this before is WIPO and UDRP’s are very inconsistent, they seem to make there findings first and then try to frame an argument to support it after, so you can’ really sleep well at night on the basis of precedence when it come to these hearings

The fact is the complainants here knew this and tried to use someone else’s trademark to establish their own rights because they knew they had no common law rights. They should have been caught with their pants down yet the panelist chose to play along anyway while at the same time make up his own trademark law.

No one entity has exclusive rights to a pure geographic domain name extension except for the .gov TLD. Trying to “partner” with a local municipality is just a recipe for disaster.

Exactly

This decision is very troubling on many levels.

It’s a poor decision with convoluted logic, but the implications are quite wide and reaching, why I thought it was a very important case for all to read through

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”The fact that the content of the “under construction” pages may have been selected by a registrar rather than Respondent does not absolve Respondent of bad faith.“

”Such conduct falls squarely with the example of bad faith in paragraph 4(b)(iv) of the Policy, which does not require that Respondent benefit so long as the use is commercial and someone benefits. “

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Have I missed something? It was my understanding that if the registrant chooses not to park a domain name, the registrant would not be responsible for the temporary site published by the registrar and the advertisements that may accompany it.

If this decision actually represents the current understanding of these rules and regulations, this has HUGE implications. I specifically choose not to park my domain names in order to avoid this very result! The fact that the registrar does not offer a mechanism whereby a domain owner can simply opt-out of any any third party monetization plan makes this decision all the more shocking.

As for the issue of domain names that incorporate the name of a governmental entity, service, location and/or other identifier, to the extent that these decisions draw on common law trademark rights, the more that holders of geo domains might have reason to worry.

If a municipality one day asks it’s city attoney on what basis a private business venture or individual is entitled to the thousands or millions of dollars in continuing revenues generated by a domain name bearing the very name of the city it has been charged with governing and whose budget, efforts and good will are the very reason such demand and popularity for the domain name counterpart exists at all, how will the city attorney respond?

Geo domain owners might contact their own legal representatives and begin to contemplate that question as well. Depending on that assessment, it might even be worth considering a strategic revenue sharing alliance with a governmental entity as preemptive to going to battle for a domain name that could possibly be lost.*

*Not intended as legal advice or a legal opinion. See your trademark attorney for that. This is simply one of many possible patterns that might emerge as the domain dots continue to be connected. Nevertheless, it’s the beginning of a pattern I would want on my radar screen sooner instead of later.

I haven’t seen any either but the next big adult show will be in Vegas In January

There might be one held in conjunction with that.