It looks like a UDRP was filed against https://t.co/1tWA9dHQ5m and https://t.co/wlPCjHdTyN at NAF. Both domain names are registered at CSC and owned by IBM. pic.twitter.com/aE6xTXYG2F

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) March 4, 2025

A week and a half ago, I noticed a UDRP filing that appeared to be pretty egregious. A company filed a UDRP against ResourceInteractive.com and Resource.com at NAF. I think Resource.com is a 7 figure descriptive one word .com domain name. Both of those domain names have long been owned by IBM, a $225+ billion publicly traded company.

The UDRP decision was published this morning, and in an unsurprising decision, the panelist, Ivett Paulovics, ruled in favor of IBM. In addition, a Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) finding was made. Incidentally, IBM’s counsel did not even request this finding, so it was as clear cut of an RDNH as they come.

In order to win a UDRP, the complainant must prove that the domain name is identical or confusingly similar to its trademark, the respondent has no legitimate rights to the domain name, and the domain name was registered and used in bad faith. It can’t just prove one element – it must prove all three.

In many UDRP filings that end in RDNH, the complainant was able to at least prove the first element but failed to prove the last two. The third element – registration and usage in bad faith – is generally impossible to prove if the domain registrant owned the domain name before the complainant even existed. This impossibility is why some of these UDRP filings end in RDNH because that is something a complainant should know is impossible to prove before filing the UDRP.

In this particular case, the Panel ruled that the complainant couldn’t even prove one element of the UDRP.