Hobby Lobby wins one UDRP, but reverse domain name hijacking in the other

Both domains were likely typosquatted, but the arguments in one case didn’t line up.

Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) provider FORUM published two decisions involving Hobby Lobby today, with drastically different results.

In one case, the company won a dispute against the registrant of HobbyLobbby .com (three bs). In the other dispute, it was found guilty of trying to reverse hijack HobbyLibby .com.

On the surface, these both look like typosquatting domains. The first one has an extra b. The second one substitutes an i for an o, and these letters are next to each other on the keyboard. Moreover, in both cases, the domain owners didn’t respond to the case.

So why the big difference in results?

Hobby Lobby filed both cases on the same day, and I suspect it used essentially the same arguments in both cases.

The challenge for the libby domain was twofold.

First, Hobby Lobby didn’t provide a screenshot showing how the domain was being used. That was a mistake.

Second, it said Libby is not a word, and thus, the only reason for registering this domain was to sell it to the Complainant.

Setting aside that a more likely reason for registering was to monetize the domain, panelist Alan Limbury took issue with the blanket statement that Libby is not a word. He wrote:

“Libby” is indeed a word. It is a commonly used name, short for Elizabeth. It is the name of a place in Montana. It is the name of an online library.

The word “hobby” is a dictionary word. It is not distinctive. The combination of “hobby” and “libby” in Respondent’s domain name, albeit confusingly similar to Complainant’s mark, are insufficient to constitute evidence that Respondent acquired the domain name primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to Complainant who is the owner of the trademark or service mark or to a competitor of Complainant, for valuable consideration in excess of Respondent’s documented out-of-pocket costs directly related to the domain name.

There is no evidence that Respondent had Complainant’s mark in mind when registering the domain name almost 16 years ago nor that Respondent has approached Complainant to sell the domain name.

Limbury concluded:

As noted, the Complaint states that the domain name should be considered as having been registered and being used in bad faith because “Libby” is not a word and that the only reason Respondent registered hobbylibby.com was to sell the domain name registration to Complainant. The Panel considers that Complainant must have known that both statements were false and that its Complaint should fail. The Panel therefore finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.

I think this was an issue of “phoning it in,” and panelists never like that. Hobby Lobby might have won this case with better arguments (for example, focusing on how the domain was monetized).

A different panelist heard the other case. I wonder what the results would have been if the same panelist heard both.