A Google Search for “Lambo.com Domain” shows that Richard Blair purchased the Lambo.com domain name a few years ago for $10,000 and then the Lamborghini Car Company filed a UDRP WIPO Complaint against him, and then he lost the domain and it was given for FREE to the Lamborghini Car Company.
Various “Car Blogs” have celebrated the loss of the domain name from the Domain Investor, however, there’s more to this story.
You can see all of the above searches are “luxury car” news and blogs websites, celebrating the loss of Richard Blair’s Lambo.com domain name.
They clearly don’t understand domain name use by legitimate investors and the difference between trademark infringing and cybersquatting. Especially when they use terms like the “Judge had other plans!”. There was no judge… there were three panelists.
There’s more to this story.
For starters, although two of the three Panelists came to the conclusion that “The majority of the Panel therefore finds that the disputed domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith”, the third panelist, The Honorable Neil Anthony Brown QC, dissented and stated:
“the evidence and the only evidence, is that the Respondent advertised the domain name for sale,
not to Lamborghini, or to a competitor of Lamborghini, but to the world at large on the general market. That is not prohibited and is not proscribed by any provision of the UDRP. Nor does it show that the Respondent intended to sell it either to Lamborghini or to a competitor. If merely offering a domain name for sale to the public is held to be bad faith, virtually all sales of domain names would be prohibited, which was clearly not intended.”
The Honorable Neil Anthony Brown QC also wrote:
“the Complainant relies on the proposition that “(t)here is no conceivable legitimate interest for the use
of the disputed domain name by the Respondent or the underlying registrant.” That is not so, it has been
shown that there is a wide variety of actual legitimate uses that are made of the domain name which have no connection at all with Lamborghini. Offering a domain name with such wide legitimate potential to a wide potential market can hardly be described as being in bad faith. The Complainant has thus not shown that the domain name was registered in bad faith.”
The Honorable Neil Anthony Brown QC also wrote:
“The Complainant’s case is strangely silent on the issue of use in bad faith which it must prove. Offering a domain name for sale, at any price, is not in bad faith when the domain name may be of interest and value to a wide variety of potential purchasers within any of its many meanings of which evidence has been given. That is the only use in question, as the Respondent has not used the domain name for anything else. Putting the domain name up for sale is the only use to which he has put the domain name and that use is entirely lawful, no matter what the price the seller asks. The Complainant has thus not made out the case that the domain name was registered and/or used in bad faith. The Complaint should be dismissed for that reason in addition to the other reasons already given.”
It appears Richard Blair was unlucky to lose his domain name, in this case.
To be clear, though, the UDRP (and dissenting opinion of Brown QC) was 3 years ago. Since that time, the situation has indeed been in the law courts and it was a Judge who made the latest decision (which was to affirm an earlier Court’s decision).