Just out of interest John,and I understand you may not wish to answer this, roughly what would it cost to defend against a UDRP ?. I know like most lawyers you will say "depends on the case ,how longs a piece of string" ,but I we talking US$2,500 or US$25,000 "ish" ?
Given that it does depend on the case, the typical range has been from $4K to $7K.
Some fact patterns are so repetitive, especially if it is a "dictionary word PPC case" with no other interesting facts, that responding to them is fairly mechanical.
I spent a lot of extra and unbilled time on decal.com because it was such a dead-bang simple factual situation, and the claim was so unbelievably stupid, that after getting over the obvious, the bulk of the response was a discussion of how boneheaded UDRP decisions have been encouraging frivolous complaints.
On the "do I need a lawyer to respond to a UDRP" question that comes up from time to time, the complaint in this case was so whacky that it would have been a challenge to lose. The word is "decal", and the complainant's own exhibit showed the domain was being used to advertise decals. Given that evidence, it was tempting to respond with "So?"
However, if the domain is valuable, it's not a good idea to expect that the Panel is going to help you out. Everybody involved in the process completely understands that the UDRP is a system in which competitive dispute resoluton providers are attempting to attract complainants. If a dispute resolution provider is seen as "respondent friendly", then they are not going to be in the UDRP business for long.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that the panelists themselves are paid what amounts to a token fee, given what they are expected to do. So they aren't exactly thrilled to have to apply their considerable education and expertise to something as stupid as the claim in this case.
