Hello and Assalamo Alaikum,
I always think about making our domain industry more stronger than ever. I’ve come up with a simple but great idea and if this can be implemented, it will be helpful for all domainers participating in this great cause.
There are many instances where domainer gets hit with UDRP and just because of lack of funds, he/she is unable to respond back. Although there have been some cases where a domainer been hit with UDRP and don’t even bother responding having loads of $$$ and ends up even losing it. Well, I’m not talking such lazy domainers and we can rule them out for sure. Domainer including newbie, veteran, panel members or can be any one participate and donate funds.
So what my proposal is we can have 3 or 5 members panel which comprises of domainers and at least one IP lawyer. One of the panel members shall be collecting and sharing it publicly about the total collected and available funds.
Next step is we’ll urge all domainers who’re well capable and have adequate funds to donate on regular basis to collect as much funds as possible which will cover all the expenses from responding to UDRP utilizing the services of our IP lawyer and other expenses incurred if any.
Once we’re well set in terms of securing funds, any domainer who gets hit with UDRP and can contact us in order to seek help in responding. We’ll leave up to the honesty of that domainer to inform if he/she is having no extra funds to respond or can partially cover the fees.
There will be a criteria of minimum two things to meet before we proceed any further.
1) There has to be enough funds easily available with us to cover all necessary expenses.
2) Majority of the panel members MUST agree upon the case in hand is good enough to be responded back. Because we would not be wasting any money on obvious trademark domains.
If the above two conditions are met, funds will be allocated for that particular case and our IP lawyer will take it up further.
I would like everyone to chime in and give your suggestions and/or feedback.
Thank you!
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I don’t think this makes sense. Only a select few will use “our” IP lawyers services while others donate without getting much in return.
In my opinion a better option that benefits everyone, that is to create a resource online for what to do when hit with an UDRP and which IP lawyers who are great for UDRP cases.
The purpose of each person is mainly to help others and get advantage if hit with UDRP in future. You just don’t need to do everything to get anything in return ALWAYS. That’s why my post title says “help grow domain industry”.
There are already plenty of resources available but this cannot be safeguard you not to get hit with UDRP even if you’ve a developed site on your domain!
How will this help grow the domain name industry?
Slowly once the number of frivolous UDRPs will go down due to unity among the domainers and helping each others, I see only growing further. If any one likes it or not, but the truth is most of the domainers are not united and scattered in many ways. That’s one of the reason big giants come after domainers without thinking too much and try their luck for $1500 which most of the time goes in their favor as respondents either lack of funds or knowledge on responding or on the understanding of entire legal procedure.
Hi AbdulBasit
I tried exactly the same plan a number of years ago and I am afraid that you will find out the same thing – nobody wants to put up funds to defend other persons domains. However, I wish you luck and good fortune in getting this started.
Howard Neu, Esq.
Hi Howard!
Thanks for commenting and sharing about working on the same plan in past. This gives me more motivation on making it happen.
I completely agree on your point where nobody wants to put up funds to defend other persons domain which I too think is the main issue. That’s why I wanted to make it public and see if and how many people are there to help and I’ll make sure to be the first to add up funds every year.
We’ve tossed around the idea of UDRP Insurance. Basically you pay a nominal amount that is based on the size of your portfolio, and then use those funds to keep a lawyer on retainer to defend anyone who gets hit. But it ended up being really complicated to come up with a pricing model, because it isn’t just about portfolio size it is about the implied risk based on the domains in the portfolio. Not even just from a TM perspective but also from a desirability perspective – LLL.com and dictionary are really likely to get filed against. And it’s… Read more »
That was a great idea for sure!
To sum up all those complications, that’s why we need to have a well experienced 3-5 members panel from our industry who’ll decide which domain to be selected towards a legal battle AND is it even worth fighting for it. Both these things will be decided by the panel members and majority’s vote would be counted.
Rather than try to reinvent the wheel here, you could suggest that domainers join the ICA (www.ica.domains) which has been fighting for the rights of legitimate domain owners for over a decade with a major emphasis on UDRP reform.
Thanks Bill for your feedback which is appreciated 🙂
I wanted to join in past and had talked with Nat few times but UDRP reforms could take long time. In the meantime, if this idea can be implemented even at ICA, I would be happy to join and I’m sure many others would be too as discussed at NamePros on the same post I published there.