Yes, the UDRP is not designed for stolen domain names!

Complainants from China tried to recover 74 domains, that they claim were stolen, using a UDRP complaint and failed.

And it is only natural that it failed. UDRP was not designed for recovering stolen domain names. It might be a cheap and easy way to recover a stolen domain name but it is not the proper way.

While stretching the UDRP can be useful it might also be very dangerous. Applauding the abuse of the UDRP is not wise in my opinion as the UDRP can be and is abused in various ways by both Complainants and Panelists.

The Complainants said that Respondent hacked into the Complainants’ GoDaddy accounts and changed the registrant information for the disputed domain names to the Respondent’s personal information without the knowledge or consent of the Complainants. Moreover, the Respondent has attempted to sell the disputed domain names to interested buyers. (BTW the domain names in question are still in GoDaddy and have not been transferred to some other registrar so it should have been pretty straight forward to prove the theft. If there is a theft then it was performed somewhere around September 2016. Not sure what is going on here.)

The Complainants had no relevant registered trademarks and claimed that the disputed domain names are identical to unregistered trademarks in which the Complainants have rights.

The Panelist found that the complainants did not have any trademark rights and denied the complaint:

“The Panel has reviewed all of the annexes submitted by the Complainant, and has been unable to find any evidence that the key parts of the disputed domain names have been used/advertised as trademarks, i.e., to identify the Complainant as the source of goods or services under a particular mark. The Complainant only submits a conclusory allegation of common law rights without proving it has acquired trademark rights in these names to support its contention.

The Complainant provides no evidence beyond an assertion that very modest economic resources were spent on marketing the disputed domain names and they produce modest annual revenue. Furthermore, the mere assertion that the Complainants have spent economic resources in order to market the disputed domain names is insufficient by itself to establish rights in a mark for the purposes of the Policy.”

The disputed domain names were registered at various times between March 9, 2003 and June 6, 2014. Since the domain names appear to be stolen I will post them all here:

bx111222.com
bx222333.com
bx333444.com
bx444555.com
bx555666.com
bx666777.com
bx777888.com
bx888999.com
cheng11.com
cheng111.com
cheng222.com
cheng33.com
cheng333.com
cheng444.com
cheng55.com
cheng555.com
cheng666.com
cheng77.com
cheng777.com
cheng88.com
cheng99.com
fa888.com
hggjw.com
hggjw.net
hg1669.com
hg1895.com
hg1896.com
hg1898.com
hg1898.net
hhhggg.com
hhhggg.net
hhhggg.org
h1898.com
long00000.com
long11111.com
long22222.com
long33333.com
long44444.com
long55555.com
long66666.com
long77777.com
long88888.com
long99999.com
my1898.com
new2.com
ok888999.com
sjb1122.com
sjb1133.com
sjb1144.com
sjb1155.com
sjb6699.com
xin2.com
xin2.net
yhgj.com
yh111222.com
yh1122.com
yh1133.com
yh1144.com
yh1155.com
yh1555.com
yh1666.com
yh6789.com
111xin2.com
222xin2.com
333xin2.com
444xin2.com
555xin2.com
666xin2.com
7-q.com
7422.com
777xin2.com
797979.com
888xin2.com
999xin2.com