Practitioners Confounded by SUCKS.com Panel Decision

You file a UDRP complaint. The respondent fails to answer. WIPO issues a certification of default. Home run, right? Wrong. A panel has decided that Asda Group Limited of the UK cannot stop a disgruntled former employee from using the "asdasucks.net" domain name despite the fact that the "respondent" never responded to the complaint. The panel found that the domain name that "contained a selection of material directed at the management of the Complainant, which can only sensibly be described as scandalously and disgustingly abusive," was not confusingly similar to the "asda" trademark.

Martin Schwimmer and Eric Sinrod have also weighed in on the case.