Domains have and will continue to go up in value faster than any other commodity ever known to man.
- Microsoft Founder Bill Gates
Domain names are increasingly part of a brand, and having the right domain name is critical to succeeding in online business. Nefarious individuals known as “cybersquatters” often try to buy and hold a domain name similar to a successful company’s, forcing the rightful name holder to pay the squatter for the domain name’s use. Often, cybersquatters will run pay-per-click sites on their poached domains, earning money off of people who thought they were visiting your site. Other companies, often larger ones, will sometimes try to push people off of domain names that could be useful to the company, despite the fact that their owners have a legitimate interest in them.
These disputes are commonly tried before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Based in Geneva, Switzerland, anyone in the world can submit their domain name dispute under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) to WIPO. Following that hearing, litigation in the United States may follow.
We have successfully represented clients seeking to protect their domain name interests by stripping others of confusingly similar domain names registered in bad faith, and retaining domain names that others have wrongly sought to take away. Our experience and expertise in UDRP procedures, such as the Glenn Beck case, speaks for itself. We are also experienced in the litigation following a UDRP hearing, where one party feels the WIPO panel decided in error. In those cases, we are ready to represent clients as well, and ensure that the domain name at issue belongs to its rightful owner.