Company pays to end lawsuit brought by VirtualPoint, Inc.
Document exchange company Certipost has paid an undisclosed amount to settle a lawsuit brought by VirtualPoint, Inc. over the domain name Certipost.com.
VirtualPoint’s owner David Lahoti registered the domain name back in 2000. A couple years later Certipost started. In 2008 Certipost filed a UDRP to get the domain name through WIPO and won in a strange decision. The WIPO panelist decided that, since Lahoti transferred the domain in 2008 into a different business entity he owned, the registration date of the domain should be 2008 instead of 2000..
A transfer of a domain to a different entity is usually considered a new registration under UDRP, but not if it is essentially the same owner. The panelist wrote in his decision that he understood this to be the case, but decided to rule differently because of other reasons that made him believe the domain was used in bad faith. In other words, the panelist tried to use a technicality to change the date the domain was registered so he could issue an opinion in favor of Certipost.
Falling on the wrong end of a bad decision, VirtualPoint sued Certipost in California District Court. The two parties just settled the case. Certipost will retain the Certipost.com domain name and pay a cash settlement to VirtualPoint, Inc.
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