- Joined
- Oct 2, 2012
- Posts
- 165
- Reaction score
- 55
Many large companies have become increasingly pragmatic when it comes to acquiring domains that infringe, or so they claim, upon their company's intellectual property rights.
Over the years in-house corporate counsel seem to have become much more willing to engage with holders of their desired domains and with the cost of a WIPO UDRP running into thousands and even the DRS costing £750 + VAT, there is ample scope for making serious amounts of money in the long run.
The secret is to not be too greedy. I've had literally hundreds of DRS actions initiated against me over the years, in my name as well as various nom de plumes. The DRS case brought against me by the well known conspiracy theorist, alleged child molester and accused bank vault robber Mohammed Al Fayed was certainly in my Top 10 of favourites. Google it, it was very widely reported on at the time. By the redtops and the highbrows.
There are clowns who hand reg names like fantaorange.io and then ask absolutely ludicrous figures like £50,000. Which no company is ever going to pay, just on principle. Out of the hundreds of cases against me you'll only find a handful listed in the DRS archives. This is because 99% of them were resolved at the mediation stage. In nine out of ten cases a complainant will agree to pay a sum for the sake of expediencies as well as the certainty and immediacy of being able to secure the contested domain(s) for his employer or client. Cases settled at mediation are closed and sealed.
The second highest amount that I ever received following the agreed settlement at the mediation stage was £3,000 but I have received several hundred £695 settlements. Do the math. Conveniently pitched just below the cost of taking the case to a so called 'expert', it's then a real problem for an IP agent or lawyer to make a case to his client for paying considerably more (in DRS fees plus the cost of providing a cogent argument to the expert) for just the chance to win a contested domain. The highest amount was a result of the dual UDRP and DRS cases brought against me for Purdeys.com and Purdeys.co.uk. I beat them with a published panellist decision on the .com, at which point they dropped the DRS. Unfortunately an NDA prevents me from disclosing the price they had to pay me, but the proceeds bought several very nice German motor cars and two apartments in Spain.
There is of course that breed of rabid domainer hating maniacs like Keith Gymer who would happily rather spend £25,000 (of his hapless client's money) for just the chance of being able to seize a contested domain than just 1% or 2% of that figure for the certainty of acquiring it. Gaymer has previously accused me several times in his absurdly biased and unfair decisions of being "unprofessional".
This pathetic individual's willingness to spend tens of thousands of pounds of a client's money when he could have recovered the domain instantly for, say, £500 or £695 is, in my view, the most outrageous breach of a lawyer's inherent fiduciary duty to his client that there could possibly be. Such behaviour could indeed be used as the text book definition of the pejorative that he directed at me.
Another guy who is a kindred spirit of Gaymer is the IP Manager at that iconic chav brand Burberry. He was such an abusive and horrible person who directed a stream of invective against me for simply offering to sell him the utterly generic names polos.co.uk and crewnecks.co.uk.
I was surprisedly restrained in my response to him and thanked him for his opinions and told him that as a sign of good faith, that there no hard feelings, I felt moved to give to Burberry a domain name that is so apt for them, it really couldn't go to any other company.
This was all a good few years ago but have a look at the Google listing for chavwear.co.uk. Typing the domain has provided tens of thousands of chavs seeking chavwear over the years. He went absolutely berserk. Ranting and raving, he promised lawsuits and C&D notices coming out of his ears. Chavwear.co.uk remains pointed to the Home of Chavewar to this day.
Over the years in-house corporate counsel seem to have become much more willing to engage with holders of their desired domains and with the cost of a WIPO UDRP running into thousands and even the DRS costing £750 + VAT, there is ample scope for making serious amounts of money in the long run.
The secret is to not be too greedy. I've had literally hundreds of DRS actions initiated against me over the years, in my name as well as various nom de plumes. The DRS case brought against me by the well known conspiracy theorist, alleged child molester and accused bank vault robber Mohammed Al Fayed was certainly in my Top 10 of favourites. Google it, it was very widely reported on at the time. By the redtops and the highbrows.
There are clowns who hand reg names like fantaorange.io and then ask absolutely ludicrous figures like £50,000. Which no company is ever going to pay, just on principle. Out of the hundreds of cases against me you'll only find a handful listed in the DRS archives. This is because 99% of them were resolved at the mediation stage. In nine out of ten cases a complainant will agree to pay a sum for the sake of expediencies as well as the certainty and immediacy of being able to secure the contested domain(s) for his employer or client. Cases settled at mediation are closed and sealed.
The second highest amount that I ever received following the agreed settlement at the mediation stage was £3,000 but I have received several hundred £695 settlements. Do the math. Conveniently pitched just below the cost of taking the case to a so called 'expert', it's then a real problem for an IP agent or lawyer to make a case to his client for paying considerably more (in DRS fees plus the cost of providing a cogent argument to the expert) for just the chance to win a contested domain. The highest amount was a result of the dual UDRP and DRS cases brought against me for Purdeys.com and Purdeys.co.uk. I beat them with a published panellist decision on the .com, at which point they dropped the DRS. Unfortunately an NDA prevents me from disclosing the price they had to pay me, but the proceeds bought several very nice German motor cars and two apartments in Spain.
There is of course that breed of rabid domainer hating maniacs like Keith Gymer who would happily rather spend £25,000 (of his hapless client's money) for just the chance of being able to seize a contested domain than just 1% or 2% of that figure for the certainty of acquiring it. Gaymer has previously accused me several times in his absurdly biased and unfair decisions of being "unprofessional".
This pathetic individual's willingness to spend tens of thousands of pounds of a client's money when he could have recovered the domain instantly for, say, £500 or £695 is, in my view, the most outrageous breach of a lawyer's inherent fiduciary duty to his client that there could possibly be. Such behaviour could indeed be used as the text book definition of the pejorative that he directed at me.
Another guy who is a kindred spirit of Gaymer is the IP Manager at that iconic chav brand Burberry. He was such an abusive and horrible person who directed a stream of invective against me for simply offering to sell him the utterly generic names polos.co.uk and crewnecks.co.uk.
I was surprisedly restrained in my response to him and thanked him for his opinions and told him that as a sign of good faith, that there no hard feelings, I felt moved to give to Burberry a domain name that is so apt for them, it really couldn't go to any other company.
This was all a good few years ago but have a look at the Google listing for chavwear.co.uk. Typing the domain has provided tens of thousands of chavs seeking chavwear over the years. He went absolutely berserk. Ranting and raving, he promised lawsuits and C&D notices coming out of his ears. Chavwear.co.uk remains pointed to the Home of Chavewar to this day.
