An arbitration panel of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has ruled on a complaint filed under the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) against the Demoji.com. The complaint was filed by Swiss entrepreneur Patrick Schur, who was represented by the law firm Gearhart Law, and the outcome of the case looked absolutely clear from the very beginning. The domain was registered many years before Schur began laying claim to the Demoji trademark. WIPO arbitrator Luca Barbero dismissed the complaint and found the applicant guilty of attempting to retake the domain name.
This story itself is unremarkable, but there is one interesting circumstance. This is the sixth time that the law firm Gearhart Law has participated in domain disputes on the side of the applicants. And in a sense, it has an absolute result: six defeats out of six possible. Moreover, four out of six cases, including the dispute over Demoji.com, were absolutely identical in essence and simply doomed to failure.
Domain Name Wire writer Andrew Allemann, reporting this news, quips that Gearhart Law might need to brush up on the UDRP policy. However, he also has other advice. Elliman found out that Gearhart Law once represented the interests of the defendant in a domain dispute. And that incident just ended with its victory. Perhaps the company should reconsider its priorities and focus exclusively on defense?
