US-based cybersquatter evicted of Express site

A US-based person had got himself registered as the owner of the domain name indianexpress.com through a domain name registrar before The Indian Express could do so.

Later on, the registrant, who never disclosed his identity to the registrar and was merely described as indianexpress.com in the registry’s records, entered into a deal with a US-based domain name broker company called Buydomains.com which started to offer the domain name for sale on the internet. Luthra & Luthra contacted Buydomains ‘expressing a desire’ to purchase the domain name. Buydomains.com demanded his ‘price’ for selling the domain name. With this evidence of ‘bad faith,’ a formal complaint was filed with the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Centre, pursuant to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and Rules, approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers .

Proceedings in the matter formally commenced on August 22, 2002 and a notice was issued to the domain name registrant and Buydomains.com, the respondents in the matter. A period of 20 days was given by WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre to the respondents for the purpose of filing a reply.

However, the respondents failed to file any reply within the stipulated period or even thereafter. Just before an Administrative Panel was about to be appointed by WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre to decide the case, Buydomains.com wrote to Luthra & Luthra Law Offices offering to transfer the domain name to The Indian Express with immediate effect.

Consequently, the domain name was transferred by Buydomains.com on September 20, 2002 to The Indian Express Online Media Limited, the group company that publishes the online edition of The Indian Express and various other group publications.

Said Rajiv K. Luthra, Managing Partner, Luthra & Luthra Law Offices: ‘‘There are over 150 domain name registrars all over the world as of now and they seldom take the trouble of checking and verifying whether a prospective domain name registrant actually has the right to use the domain name sought to be registered. As such, many cases occur in which someone registers a well-known trademark or its derivative as a domain name in his/her own name before the actual owner could do so and thereby prevents the actual owner from using the trademark as part of its domain name.’’

According to Mahendra Singh, counsel at Luthra & Luthra Law Offices: ‘‘The days of making millions of dollars from the domain name goldrush are long over. Any genuine owner of a trademark that is being subjected to cybersquatting can file a complaint before one of the various ICANN approved dispute-resolution-service providers like the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre and obtain relief.’’