Whoops. Ulta should have accepted this offer
The domain owner offered to transfer the domain but then won the dispute.
Ulta-mately, a bad decision.
I imagine it will be difficult for the attorneys in a recent cybersquatting case to explain the outcome to their client.
Beauty store company Ulta (NASDAQ: ULTA) filed a UDRP against the owner of UltaChat.com.
The domain registrant, who appears to be a serial entrepreneur, said he acquired the domain along with many others for a potential chat application. He ended up going with one of the other domains for the product and offered to transfer UltaChat.com to Ulta, provided that the company agreed before he had to file a formal response to the UDRP.
Ulta’s lawyers didn’t respond to the offers to transfer the name…and lost the UDRP.
National Arbitration Forum panelist David Sorkin said the domain registrant’s story is plausible and seemed miffed that Ulta’s lawyers didn’t respond to the registrant’s offer:
Respondent claims that he registered the disputed domain name along with other domain names as candidates for a product to be launched by his company, and that a different name ultimately was selected. The Panel considers that claim to be plausible, and although unsubstantiated it is at least consistent with the evidence before the Panel, including Respondent’s repeated offers to transfer the domain name to Complainant (to which Complainant does not appear to have responded). There is no indication that Respondent was seeking or expecting payment in exchange for transferring the domain name to Complainant, at least provided that resolution could be agreed upon prior to Respondent’s deadline to submit his Response in this proceeding.
So now, Ulta’s lawyers at Barnes & Thornburg LLP need to tell their client that they lost the case and passed up the guaranteed offer to get the domain for free.
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