Discuss Internet Commerce Association UDRP's (1 Viewing)

NewsBot

DN.ca
Joined
Jul 1, 2022
Topics
234
Posts
316
Likes
85
Country flag
Screenshot (22).png




Link to the above articles: News Article

Home Page: Home - InternetCommerce.org

Their Blog: Blog - InternetCommerce.org
 
Case Comment by ICA General Counsel, Zak Muscovitch: What can be done to discourage Complainants from proceeding with complaints that are “doomed to fail”? Here, the Respondent’s counsel warned the Complainant before the Complaint was filed that the Respondent’s rights were senior, yet the Complainant proceeded headlong anyhow. Not only did the Complainant proceed with this misadventure, but tried to circumvent its “fundamental problem” by wrongly invoking an unrelated third party’s cancelled trademark. Moreover, the Complainant submitted evidence that did not “withstand even the most cursory inspection”.

The Panel appropriately censured the Complainant and noted the specific reasons why the Complainant had engaged in Reverse Domain Name Hijacking. As written about previously in the Digest, the Panel could have also possibly censured the Complainant’s counsel itself by noting that on the facts of this case, it was likely the Complainant’s counsel which bore some if not most of the responsibility for proceeding despite being warned that its Complaint was doomed to fail.

Nevertheless, I have suggested previously that “blunt warnings” to Complainants be included in educational materials or as part of the filing or certification process itself, in order to dissuade conscientious but misguided or uninformed Complainant counsel from proceeding further. Yet this case demonstrates how such blunt warnings may not in fact always succeed in dissuading a Complainant and its counsel from proceeding with an abusive Complaint.

The unfortunate part is that the Respondent’s counsel did everything that it could to avoid having to defend this meritless case yet ultimately still had to. The Respondent gains nothing from this proceeding other than keeping what it was legally entitled to in the first place, and had to expend legal fees for the privilege of doing so.

Are such unfortunate outcomes for a Respondent just ‘collateral damage’ from the UDRP which provides an important service to the vast majority of Complainants who are bona fide? Or is there something that stakeholders can do to reduce the frequency, if not eliminate altogether, abusive Complaints?

Interesting read
 

Members who recently read this topic: 11

Support our sponsors who contribute to keep dn.ca free for everyone.

New Discussion Posts

CatchDrop.ca

New Market Posts

Google Ad

Popular This Week

CIRA.ca

Popular This Month

Google Ad

Back