The Marks Gray Intellectual property team will work with our clients if they have failed to renew their domain name and are being extorted for money while trying to regain it. This involves submitting claims to the World Intellectual Property Organization for an expedited arbitration process to determine the rightful ownership of the domain or filing a complaint in a US District court for cybersquatting.
According to the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, cybersquatting is registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name with the bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The cybersquatter offers to sell the domain to the person or entity who owns the trademark contained within the name at an inflated price.
In the United States, the owner of a trademark may file a civil complaint under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act in federal court in an effort to obtain control of the domain name. Another alternative is to file a Complaint through the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy that is provided through the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) or the National Arbitration Forum (NAF).
WIPO and NAF provide expedited administrative proceedings in the form of arbitration for the resolution of cybersquatting issues. A trademark owner may be able to obtain a ruling from an arbitrator ordering the registrar to turn the domain name over to the trademark owner.