Case study: request a three-member panel to defend a .net domain

Case study: request a three-member panel to defend a .net domain. UDRP and ccTLD domain recovery and defense across .net. Email the firm to assess your case.

A complaint arrives. The .net domain your client registered years before a complainant ever filed for a trademark is now the target of a UDRP proceeding at WIPO. The complainant chose a single-member panel. The respondent has 20 days to respond – and a decision to make: accept the single panelist, or request a three-member panel and share the higher filing fee.

Under the UDRP, a respondent may request a three-member panel even when the complainant filed for a single panelist. The respondent then pays the difference between the single and three-member WIPO filing fee – from USD 1,500 to USD 4,000 – with the cost split between the parties. Where the facts strongly favor the registrant, a three-member panel reduces exposure to an idiosyncratic single-panelist ruling and creates a richer record.

This case study walks the situation, the defense strategy, and the result – all anonymized, with no real names or case numbers.

The Situation: A Pre-Trademark Registration Under Attack

The registrant – a small technology company – had held a generic-phrase .net domain for more than a decade. The domain described a category of software tools the company actively sold. The complainant, a brand owner that had obtained a trademark registration several years after the domain was created, filed a UDRP complaint alleging cybersquatting. The complainant's evidence was thin: a mark registration post-dating the domain, and a bare allegation that the registrant was a cybersquatter.

Our client's situation contained the key facts that decide respondent-side cases. The domain predated the complainant's trademark. The registrant had a functioning commercial website at the domain, offered genuine software products, and had never approached the complainant or solicited a sale. No parking page. No pay-per-click links targeting the complainant's brand. No pattern of abusive registrations.

The pain, of course, was real. A default or a poor defense would transfer a domain the registrant had built a business around. That risk was not abstract.

The Strategy: Three-Member Panel and the Paragraph 4(c) Record

The first decision was the panel composition request. A single panelist hearing a close case introduces variance. Three panelists – each reviewing the record independently – reduce the chance that one panelist's misreading of a generic term or a timeline disparity produces an unjust transfer. We advised requesting a three-member panel. The respondent paid its share of the higher fee: a concrete cost, but proportionate to what was at stake.

The defense centered on Paragraph 4(c) of the UDRP – the safe harbors that establish legitimate interest. Two applied directly here.

First, the registrant had made a bona fide offering of goods or services at the domain before receiving notice of the dispute. The record showed years of sales, invoices, and a commercial website, all pre-dating the complaint and the complainant's trademark. Second, the generic or descriptive character of the phrase meant the registrant had a colorable argument that no one could monopolize it through a later-filed mark.

We assembled the legitimate-interest record methodically: domain creation date certificates, archived web pages from the Wayback Machine showing continuous commercial use, sales records, and correspondence showing the registrant had never solicited the complainant. Each piece addressed one of the three UDRP elements the complainant was required to prove.

We also evaluated whether the facts supported an RDNH finding – the panel's discretion to declare the complaint itself an abuse of the process. The complainant's mark post-dated the domain. The complainant offered no evidence that the registrant had ever known the mark existed. These are the conditions under which panels have been willing to say the complaint was brought in bad faith. We flagged the RDNH argument explicitly in the response.

For further context on how pre-trademark registration facts affect UDRP outcomes, see our analysis at how domain registration before a trademark affects UDRP outcomes.

The Outcome: Denial and an RDNH Finding

In a matter concluded in early 2026 – a .net generic-phrase domain, technology sector – the three-member panel denied the complaint unanimously. All three elements under Paragraph 4(a) were considered. The panel found the complainant had failed to prove the respondent lacked legitimate interests: the bona fide commercial use, documented over more than a decade, was dispositive. On bad faith, the panel noted the domain predated the trademark by years, and that no evidence of targeting existed.

The panel went further. It issued an RDNH finding, concluding that the complaint had been filed to deprive a legitimate registrant of a domain it had every right to hold. The finding carries no monetary penalty – the UDRP does not award damages or costs – but it is a matter of record and a reputational consequence for the complainant's counsel.

The domain remained with our client. No transfer. No cancellation.

If you have received a UDRP complaint targeting a .net domain, the response window is 20 days. For an assessment of whether a three-member panel request and a full Paragraph 4(c) defense are the right moves for your case, contact info@cognomenlaw.com.

Related at COGNOMEN

• UDRP respondent defense and RDNH – how we build the case to keep your domain
• How registration before a trademark affects UDRP outcomes – doctrine and evidence
• Domain due diligence – pre-acquisition dispute history and chain of title review