Gerald M. Levine over at ip legal corner wrote an excellent article discussing the ADO.com UDRP.
Mr. Levine has a lot of experience and expertise in these matters and gives a very detailed breakdown of the case. (tip of the cap to GeorgeK)
I wrote about the case here and how it could have other implications.
From the article:
The single most prominent reason long-held domain names are lost is failure to properly curate (by which I mean populating the website with bad faith content from which registration in bad faith can be inferred). Price is not a factor for bad faith without concrete proof of the 4(b)(i) elements, yet in Autobuses de Oriente price was elevated as a prominent factor. The Panel also condemned Respondent because it was passively holding <ado.com> and offering it for sale on a page that included other domain names each with a designed logo. Passive holding, too, a not a factor when considered alone; but when combined with other factors bad faith registration can be inferred.
Does the Autobuses de Oriente decision deserve the universal condemnation it has received? (The three industry bloggers noted above are of the view the Panel put their combined fingers on the scale, and I think that criticism is fair). What constitutes concrete and “fake” evidence is worth exploring because it makes investors (large and small) of random letter domain names vulnerable to Complainants who claim the letters are not random but infringing.
No doubt, this is a difficult area for Panels. 2017 saw some notable decisions on three-letter domain names, going both ways. <Imi.com> was lost, but <dll> was not. What we know from the summary of the record in Autobuses de Oriente is that Respondent acquired <ado.com> in 2012 from an earlier holder whose website (allegedly) contained infringing links to transportation. Ordinarily, a successor is not held responsible for its predecessor’s conduct, as long as it does not continue the bad faith after its acquisition (my emphasis). Here, the Panel conjectured that even if Respondent did not know of Complainant’s (allegedly) “famous” mark, it was guilty of “willful blindness”:
Thank you for posting this. Mr. Levine’s article is a very important read. I’m going to buy his book.
Thanks Raymond for the post, this article is very good, respect Mr Levine!
FYI, my ADO logo is red simply because the original ADO logo I posted on my landing page announcing my advertising service was red (a white AD above a big plain red O). So when the project was abandoned many years after and the O was added to the logo then naturally the color continued to be red.