Rick Schwartz’s company eRealEstate.com, has just filed its response to the UDRP on the domain name SaveMe.com, filed by the owners of SaveMe.com.br.

The full response is posted on Ricks site erealestate.com

The response was written by Howard Neu, Esq, who blasts the complainant and asks for a finding of reverse hijacking.

Here are some of the more interesting parts of the response:

“”It is difficult to know where to begin to respond to the Complainant’s improbable and improper claims that have required Respondent to expend funds to defend.”

“The Complainant has no Trademark; while the Respondent registered the domain name SaveMe.com in 1996, which could not have been in “Bad Faith” pursuant to the Rules, the Complainant did not even exist until 2010 and registered the domain name SaveMe.com.br in 2010 and is attempting to use the UDRP Process to hijack the bigger and better domain name SaveMe.com  on the spurious pretext of “unlawful and exploitive actions” of the Respondent.”

“It is really a shame that the UDRP Reverse Hijacking Rules do not have more serious consequences for those, such as counsel for the Complainant, who know that they have no UDRP Action, but bring it anyway on the hopes of stealing a domain name from the rightful owner.”

“Complainant either ingenuously or more likely, knowingly, states “It is undeniable the confusion caused by Respondent’s domain to complainant’s customers, since the disputed domain is a simple typographic error to complainant’s domains.”  We are not sure how to respond to this ridiculous statement as it is so outrageous as to defy response.  15 years after Respondent registered SaveMe.com, Complainant registered SaveMe.com.br, using the country code TLD to divert traffic from Respondent’s domain.  How can that possibly be a typographic error by either party?”

“The only “bad faith” that can be absolutely proven in this case is that of the Complainant.”

“At the time that Complainant registered SaveMe.com.br, it did so in bad faith, knowing that Respondent had been using SaveMe.com in one way or another for over 15 years; had developed substantial traffic to the site; and Complainant wanted to steal that traffic for its own use, just like it now wants to steal the domain name for its own use.”

“Complainant makes a number of libelous statements concerning alleged unethical and illegal conduct of Mr. Rick Schwartz, who is not a party to this action, but is a principal in Respondent corporation.  None of these allegations are proper in a UDRP Action and will not be responded to here.  Suffice it to say that a separate libel action against the complainant is being seriously considered.”

“A definitive discussion and ruling on what comprises Reverse Domain Hijacking was provided by the panel in Prime Pictures LLC v. DigiMedia.com L.P., Case No. D2010-1877.”

“Reverse Domain Name Hijacking is defined in paragraph 1 of the Rules as “using the Policy in bad faith to attempt to deprive a registered domain-name holder of a domain name.”

“In the present case, the Complaint correctly identified that the Domain Name was registered in 1998. Given that the earliest date of any registration or use of the mark relied upon in the Complaint was in 2005, the registration of the Domain Name could not have been in bad faith on any interpretation of the facts and cases cited in the Complaint.:

“Here, the attorney for the Complainant knew that the domain could not have been registered in bad faith, that the Complainant has no trademark, that no proof of common law trademark has been presented that would give rise to secondary meaning, and that because the Complainant’s offer to purchase the domain name for $50,000.00 was rejected by the Respondent, Complainant decided that it would try to get the domain name at a substantially lower cost by filing this UDRP Action. ”

“This is a classic case of Reverse Domain Hijacking”

We agree

We will let you know when the decision is handed down.

Source from http://www.thedomains.com/

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