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  • Member Since: Sep 20, 2005
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Featured Posts — by Patel 

Cybersquatting, DNS, Domain Names, Law, Top-Level Domains / blogs / Feb 28, 2008 7:52 AM PST

UDRP: The Liabilities for the Corporations and/or their Lawyers

This post is based on the scenario that a trademark.tld domain name is registered with a UK ICANN accredited registrar, (they have an exclusive UK jurisdiction clause in their contracts), the trademark.tld criticism website located at that domain name is strictly non-commercial, the servers are located in the UK, and the registrant is a British citizen. In the above circumstances, the corporations and/or their lawyers are taking a big risk when they use the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies (UDRP) in order to silence criticism at trademark.tld. ›››

By Patel | Comments: 1 | Views: 1404

Cybersquatting, DNS, Domain Names, Internet Governance, Law, Top-Level Domains, Whois / blogs / Oct 26, 2007 10:57 AM PST

Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders

The following is based on my experience and interpretation of the UDRP and the relevant laws of the United Kingdom and European Union. This is not legal advice but just my own experience and interpretation. How does a UK citizen create a non-commercial trademark.tld parody criticism website and avoid harassment from the trademark holder? Here are the steps... ›››

By Patel | Comments: 0 | Views: 1510

DNS, Domain Names, Law, Policy & Regulation, Whois / blogs / Nov 26, 2006 11:03 AM PST

UDRP and Article 92(b) of EUROPEAN COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 40/94

It has been over a year since I posted "The Non-Parity of the UDRP", how little did I know then compared to now! Since that posting, the corporations and their lawyers have given me a crash course in the law and I have learned much. There are many tricks that corporations will play on a domain name registrant in order to silence criticism of the corporation and to violate the registrants right of freedom of expression without frontiers. The UDRP Administrative Proceedings is one such trick... ›››

By Patel | Comments: 0 | Views: 4138

DNS, Domain Names, Law, Top-Level Domains / blogs / Sep 20, 2005 6:34 AM PST

The Non-Parity of the UDRP

The UDRP is obviously not working. Two websites, fundamentally the same (criticism at trademark.tld), two opposite decisions, both within weeks of each other! A Complainant (Biocryst Pharmaceuticals Inc) initiated a complaint to WIPO about one of my criticism websites (biocrystpharmaceuticals.com). The Panel found in my favour. Another Complainant (Eastman Chemical Inc) meanwhile made a complaint to NAF regarding another of my criticism websites (eastman-chemical.com). The Panel found against me. The two websites are fundamentally the same, both websites in criticism of the practices of the individual companies concerned... ›››

By Patel | Comments: 12 | Views: 7917

Recent Comments — by Patel

Thanks for the constructive criticism.  However for such an awful site, it is strange that… Oct 01, 2005
Part 2 You say that “Pragmatically, I may be considering doing business with some [trademarked] entity. As part of my due diligence, I eagerly want to find critical comments, if they exist, about that entity.” In reply, it depends on what is more important “the business” or “the critical comments”. We are not talking about a small firm that you are wanting to check out before you make an internet purchase in order to guage whether or not the goods are likely to arrive, we are talking about publicly traded companies/multi national corporations. Business is all about cost and money and in general, ethics rarely play a part in making a business decision, let’s not kid ourselves about that fact. For example, an oil company spills a few million gallons of oil and you as an “ethical person” will not buy their petrol? Hmm.  If the price is cheaper at the pump than their competitors, the general public will make a point of buying it for that reason and that reason alone.  It’s all financial, business is business. People are generally looking for criticism regarding a company when things have gone wrong, not prior to things going wrong.  If you are dealing with a company in a business capacity, your priority is financial, it is not the health of the ordinary person, again let’s not kid ourselves here.  If you are looking to purchase methylene chloride for your business, do you really care about the fact that the company spilled 30,000 gallons of the stuff near a school?  Hmmm.  The general public however do care and they want to know if this has happened before.  This is the reason they are searching for the term, not for due diligence.  Business people have vast resources available to them, the general public do not, that does not mean that they are not entitled to find out about spills, accidents, fraud, criminal fines, of say $11m etc, etc. Using trademark.tld aids the general public in finding the comments critical of the company because, as mentioned previously, it would be very difficult to push the website back without the company inadvertently pushing their own website back.  Trademark.tld does not hinder a person’s search, as seems to be your belief, as when search results are returned, the search results obviously show partial content of the website and it is therefore evident that the website is in criticism of the company. A point to note, Eastman is playing the jurisdiction card to avoid my legal proceedings against them.  If like you, they felt that I had no right to use trademark.tld, then why are they hiding from me?  I have a case filed against them in the United Kingdom Supreme Court and Eastman are also based in the UK, yet they say they will not accept jurisdiction. Hmmm.  Is it possible that they and their liars, sorry, I mean lawyers, Jones Day, know full well that I am acting entirely within the law and I will sue their pants off all the way the the European Court of Justice if need be, under all sorts of acts, including freedom of speech, human rights etc., etc. Eastman’s practice of simply using the UDRP as a back door gagging order is further evidenced by the fact that they made complainant to NAF regarding my registration of Eastman-Chemical.com, they “won” but avoided jurisdiction.  I then had no choice but to protect my freedom of speech and my legitimate rights in the domain name by registering another domain name, EastmanChemicalCo.com (again, registered through a US registrar, being still a little naive at that time), again Eastman made complaint to NAF, still awaiting outcome but with absolutely no faith left in NAF, I have protected my rights by registering another domain name, TheEastmanCompany.com, through a UK registrar this time, lesson learned!.  Now, interesting point......, Eastman, in the first two incidences, filed a complaint to NAF within weeks (first incidence) and hours (second incidence) yet they have not bothered to file a complaint regarding the domain name registered in UK jurisdiction?  Hmmmm! Finally, regarding the non-parity of the UDRP, approx. 150 countries do not have an ICANN accredited registrar, so what is “mutual” about the jurisdiction under the UDRP?  Absolutely nothing because complainant’s will always choose the jurisdiction of the registrar’s base.  I leave you with that thought! Oct 01, 2005
Part 1 From your postings, you seem very much in favour of complainant’s/trademark owners.  You say that “criticism names are up for grabs”, yet you do not think trademark.tld is up for grabs?  Of course it is when it is used as the address of a non-commercial website in criticism of the trademark holder.  When Eastman registers a domain name purely with the intent to stop criticism, then if I brought a complaint against them under the UDRP, I should win if the UDRP was fair.  The reason why I wouldn’t win is that I don’t own a trademark but the fact is I do have a right in the trademark in a non-commercial capacity, just as much right as the trademark owner or anyone else for that matter.  However, as mentioned, the UDRP is not fair and I would not be allowed to bring a complaint because I don’t “own” a “trademark”, so under the UDRP, my rights in the trademark do not exist, even though they do exist in law.  I stand by my opinion that the UDRP is one sided in favour of complainant’s and that complainant’s are using the UDRP as a back door gagging order because they know they would lose in a court of law. Regarding your comment of “nonsense” regarding “push back”, it all depends on which side of the fence you are on.  You say you have no difficulty in finding criticism sites, well many people do and whilst you say that people may have “marginal skills”, skill has little to do with it.  You seem to think that people might not be able to find criticism sites because of their “marginal skills”.  Well maybe a lot of people are not fortunate enough to be as “intelligent” as you are, me included.  The fact remains that you can type into a search engine such terms as eastman sucks, eastman chemical spill, eastman fraud, eastman corruption, eastman lawsuit, v eastman, class action lawsuit eastman etc, etc., and you will not find the criticism information you are looking for, that is not to say that it does not exist, because it does.  You will however get a search return containing many webpages completely non related to the eastman company and some others sponsored/non sponsored links to the said company themselves but a very limited to non existent amount of criticism.  The small amount of criticism you are likely to find is on a membership basis, so again, not readily accessible to the general public. I would say that push back/exclusion definitely plays a part in search engines.  Any domain name with critical wording attached to it can be filtered in quite the same way as adult content is on the internet, you should be well aware of this.  The general public have a far better chance of finding content critical of the company at trademark.tld because a company would find it near impossible to push that website back without inadvertently pushing their own website back.  I am not saying that The Eastman Company is practicing such deceptive and manipulative behaviour but such low tactics do exist. Another case in point regarding the pushing back of criticism websites is the case of MontrealConvention.org, also .com, a website which is critical of the practices of the aviation industry.  If you look on the back of any airline ticket, it will refer to the Montreal Convention.  However, type Montreal Convention into any search engine, yahoo for example, and although you would expect to find a website called Montreal Convention at the top of the search results, or at least on the first page, that is not what you will find.  For example, on yahoo, MontrealConvention.org/.com is not even listed in the first one hundred search results!  And before you judge my “marginal skills”, I am at least intelligent enough to submit the url to search engines regularly, and also have the wording in the meta tags, so your theory that push back/exclusion does not exist does not really hold water does it?  Exact title in domain name, regularly submitted, included at the top of the meta tags and not even in the first 100 search results?  Hmmmmm! On MSN.com, that domain name comes 6th in the search results, However, I would say that it did used to come first, and now 6th but at least on MSN it still shows on the first page. Credit to MSN. Oct 01, 2005
In Eastman’s case, guess who owns such criticism domain names as eastmansucks.com, eastmanchemicalsux.com, eastman-chemicalsucks.com, eastman-chemicalsux.com,… Sep 28, 2005

Most Popular — by Patel

The Non-Parity of the UDRP
Sep 20, 2005 | Comments: 12 | Views: 7,917
UDRP and Article 92(b) of EUROPEAN COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 40/94
Nov 26, 2006 | Comments: 0 | Views: 4,138
Online Critics and Unlawful Harassment from Trademark Holders
Oct 26, 2007 | Comments: 0 | Views: 1,510
UDRP: The Liabilities for the Corporations and/or their Lawyers
Feb 28, 2008 | Comments: 1 | Views: 1,404