WIPO question

[domainduck]

Question for legal eagles...

I have been contacted by a UK lawyer who wants a dot-com that I have had for 1.5 years.

He has just registered the .co.uk variation.

His first email read - "Please could you say whether or not you are using this domain name, and, if not, whether you might be open to offers or proposals."

I quoted a reasonable $3,500.00 USD - He countered with $50.00 - Thus began the dispute.

There are 4 dead US trademarks, none active.

He claims 'intent to use' for an International product.

He claims that WIPO will rule in his favor, because I am merely trying to sell it, while he wants to develop it.

He also claims 'Such pure 'cybersquatting' trade is now outlawed internationally'.

I asked my lawyer to send him a response, which he has refuted.

Now, I am looking for international legal precedent.

Does anyone know of any past WIPO cases in which an entity with no TM protection won a domain name purely on the basis of 'intent to use' ?

If he can in fact take this domain name from me, then we are all in trouble.


quack

[websitedeveloper]

BUMP - very interesting situation! Hopefully some people can shed light on an answer.

[draqon]

he has no rights to the domain whatsoever. in order to win WIPO he would have to prove that the domain was *registered* and *used* in bad faith, AND that you were not making a bona fide offering of services. that would be very hard for him to do.

[namedropper]

Originally posted by domainduck
He claims that WIPO will rule in his favor, because I am merely trying to sell it, while he wants to develop it.

He also claims 'Such pure 'cybersquatting' trade is now outlawed internationally'.

In other words, he's beyond stupid.

My response would be something like, "I'm sorry, but you have an extremely poor understanding of how the ICANN name dispute process and cybersquatting laws work. If you do not wish to buy this name you will not ever have the domain. The price you would have to pay is now $5,000 and will increase by $1,500 each time I have to respond to another of your baseless accusations."

[websitedeveloper]

Originally posted by namedropper
"I'm sorry, but you have an extremely poor understanding of how the ICANN name dispute process and cybersquatting laws work. If you do not wish to buy this name you will not ever have the domain. The price you would have to pay is now $5,000 and will increase by $1,500 each time I have to respond to another of your baseless accusations."

LOL!

[Garry Anderson]

DD> He claims that WIPO will rule in his favor, because I am merely trying to sell it, while he wants to develop it.

As this man is a UK lawyer, he should know better.

He seems to imply there is something wrong with reselling and brokering.

Tell him what we we all know:

Memorable domain names command high prices on the secondary market.

Anybody else only need look at Great Domains. They are owned by VeriSign, the world's largest provider of Internet trust services.

As those that bought anything on the Internet know, VeriSign ensure secure payments online.

Proctor and Gamble had thousands of domains and were selling many off - they had beautiful.com valued at three million dollars.

So everybody can see - the secondary market is legitimate commerce. They sell domain names with a view to profit - since profit is the main purpose of commerce.

It seems to me like he is trying to bully the domain from you.