Step-by-step: recover a .in domain held passively in bad faith

Your trademark is registered. The matching .in domain points nowhere – no website, no email, just a parked page or blank resolution. The registrant has held it for months or years without apparent use. That silence is not innocence. Under the rules governing .in, passive holding can constitute bad faith, and a well-built complaint can recover the domain without setting foot in a courtroom.

To recover a .in domain held passively in bad faith, you file under the IN Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (INDRP), India's ccTLD procedure administered by the National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The INDRP mirrors the UDRP's three-element test in Paragraph 4(a): confusing similarity to your mark, the registrant's lack of rights or legitimate interests, and registration plus use in bad faith. The response window is 20 days, and the standard timeline from filing to decision runs roughly two months.

This guide walks each step of that process, identifies the trap hidden in each one, and explains what evidence actually decides whether a panel orders transfer.

What governs .in disputes, and why passive holding matters

The INDRP is the controlling procedure for .in domain disputes. NIXI administers it, and the substantive test it applies closely tracks the UDRP's three-element framework in Paragraph 4(a). That alignment matters: the large body of UDRP panel decisions on passive holding – the consensus view that a registrant need not actively exploit a domain to use it in bad faith – informs how INDRP arbitrators reason through the same facts.

Passive holding means the domain resolves to a parked or blank page, or fails to resolve at all. On its own, that is not enough. The consensus view under both the UDRP and policies modeled on it is that passive holding constitutes bad faith when the totality of circumstances makes it implausible that the registrant could ever make legitimate use of the name. The panel asks: given the strength of the complainant's mark, the registrant's apparent knowledge of it, and the absence of any plausible legitimate purpose, what else could the registration have been for?

The trap at this step: brand owners sometimes assume the complaint writes itself because no active harm is visible. It does not. You still carry the full burden on all three elements, and a weak showing on element two or three loses even a passive-holding case.

Step 1 – Confirm your trademark rights and the confusing-similarity element

The first UDRP element – and the first question every INDRP panel asks – is whether you hold rights in a name that is identical or confusingly similar to the disputed domain. This is the threshold inquiry, and panels treat it as a largely mechanical comparison of the mark against the domain string after stripping the country-code extension.

What rights count? A registered trademark is the cleanest foundation. Indian trademark registration is strongest for an .in dispute, but registrations in other jurisdictions also satisfy this element, provided they predate or are contemporaneous with the registration of the domain. Common-law rights established through documented commercial use can also qualify, though they require more evidence and carry more risk of a panel dismissing them as insufficiently proven.

The trap: registrants who hold domains bearing a slight typographic variation of your mark – a transposed letter, an added hyphen, a generic term appended – will argue the domain is not confusingly similar. Panels generally find that minor variations do not defeat similarity when the dominant element of the domain remains your mark. Build your submission around the dominant-element analysis, not just a side-by-side character comparison.

Practical checklist for this step:

• Gather trademark registration certificates (Indian and international).
• Document the date of first use of the mark in commerce, with evidence.
• Pull the RDDS/WHOIS record for the domain and note the registration date.
• Where common-law rights are relied on, compile sales figures, media coverage, and advertising spend to establish the mark's reputation before the domain was registered.

Step 2 – Build the record that the registrant has no legitimate interest

Element two asks whether the registrant has rights or legitimate interests in the domain. The complainant cannot prove a negative directly; instead, the burden shifts once you make a prima facie case. A prima facie case is made by showing your trademark rights and asserting that the registrant is not affiliated with you, was not authorized to use your mark, and is not commonly known by the domain name. At that point the registrant must come forward with evidence of a legitimate interest – and in a passive-holding case, the registrant typically offers nothing, because there is nothing plausible to offer.

The Paragraph 4(c) safe harbors define what a legitimate interest looks like: a bona fide offering of goods or services under the name before notice of the dispute; being commonly known by the name; or a legitimate noncommercial or fair-use purpose. A parked page monetized by pay-per-click advertising linked to your competitors is not a bona fide offering. Neither is a blank resolution. Neither is the mere registration of the domain years before any detectable use.

The trap at step two: complainants sometimes over-reach and argue that any third-party registration of a term that resembles their mark shows no legitimate interest. That argument fails when the registrant can point to a generic or descriptive use of the term. Keep the analysis anchored in the specific registrant's conduct and the specific domain string, not in abstract assertions about your brand's fame.

We regularly advise brand owners preparing INDRP submissions to document this element with three categories of evidence: a search confirming the registrant has no trademark of its own in the name, an archived record of the domain's historical resolution (showing nothing but parking or blank pages across the registration period), and a declaration confirming no license or permission was ever granted. That combination is usually sufficient to satisfy the prima facie showing.

For a read on whether the three UDRP elements are met in your specific situation, reach us at info@cognomenlaw.com.

Step 3 – Prove bad faith registration and use in a passive-holding case

Element three is where passive-holding cases are won or lost. Under both the UDRP and the INDRP, the complainant must show that the domain was registered and is being used in bad faith – a cumulative requirement. The word "and" is load-bearing: panels will not infer bad-faith registration from bad-faith use alone, nor bad-faith use from bad-faith registration alone.

In a passive-holding case the "use" limb requires the most work. The consensus view under the Policy is that passive holding satisfies the use limb where the totality of circumstances demonstrates that it is not possible to conceive of any plausible actual or contemplated active use of the domain by the registrant that would not be illegitimate. The factors panels weigh include:

• The strength and fame of the complainant's mark – the more widely known the mark, the harder it is to argue the registrant registered the domain innocently.
• Whether the registrant provided false or incomplete RDDS/WHOIS contact information at registration.
• Whether the registrant has failed to respond to any pre-dispute correspondence from the mark owner.
• A pattern of similar registrations by the same registrant across multiple names or zones.
• Whether the domain has been offered for sale, especially to the mark owner or its competitors.
• The absence of any business or personal activity by the registrant that would give the domain name independent commercial meaning.

No single factor is decisive. Panels weigh them in aggregate. In a recent matter – a .in passive-holding case handled in late 2024 – we assembled a record covering archived resolution history, failed pre-dispute correspondence, and a WHOIS record containing an address that could not be verified, which together supported the inference that registration had been in bad faith from day one. The panel ordered transfer.

The trap: complainants sometimes rely on the strength of their mark alone. A famous mark helps, but it does not substitute for direct evidence of bad-faith registration. Document what the registrant knew or should have known at the time of registration – not just what your mark means today.

How do you select the right forum and what does the INDRP process look like?

NIXI administers the INDRP and appoints the arbitrator; the complainant does not choose among competing providers the way it does under the UDRP (where WIPO, the Forum, CAC, and ADNDRC all accept cases). That simplifies the forum-selection question for .in: there is one path.

The procedural sequence mirrors the UDRP's five-stage structure: complaint filed and formally reviewed → registrant notified and given 20 days to respond → arbitrator appointed → decision issued → registry implements the order. A straightforward .in case typically resolves within roughly two months of filing, though the actual timeline depends on whether the registrant responds, whether a supplemental filing is sought, or whether any procedural objection arises.

One procedural distinction worth noting: the INDRP applies only to .in domains. If the same registrant is squatting on the .com or .net equivalent, that is a separate proceeding under the UDRP before WIPO, the Forum, CAC, or ADNDRC. Where the .com and .in are held by the same registrant and your evidence covers both, a consolidated strategy – filing the INDRP for .in alongside a UDRP for the gTLD – can be more efficient than sequential proceedings. We have pursued this dual-track approach in multi-zone disputes, and it also reduces the risk that a registrant who loses the .in case transfers the .com to a different registrant to complicate recovery.

Cross-zone note: if the registrant is not subject to INDRP jurisdiction, or if the registration predates the INDRP's coverage period, an Indian court action is available as an alternative route. That path is slower and more expensive, and the evidentiary standard differs; it belongs in the contingency column, not the default plan.

What evidence decides the outcome in a passive-holding case?

Evidence quality, not volume, is what separates successful INDRP complaints from dismissed ones. Panels in passive-holding cases tend to focus on two clusters: the circumstances surrounding registration, and the registrant's post-registration conduct (or absence of it).

For the registration cluster, the most useful items are:

• Evidence that your mark was well-known in India at the date the domain was registered – trademark registration certificates, press coverage, published financial disclosures, or industry awards predating the registration date.
• A timeline showing that the domain was registered after your mark became publicly associated with your business, undermining any claim of coincidence.
• Any demand for payment, offer to sell, or brokered listing discovered before or after you sent a cease-and-desist letter.

For the post-registration conduct cluster:

• Archived screenshots of the domain's resolution history across the entire registration period (use an internet archiving service to pull historical snapshots and submit them as exhibits).
• Records of any pre-dispute correspondence and the registrant's non-response or evasive reply.
• RDDS/WHOIS records preserved at regular intervals, noting any privacy-proxy service or obviously fictitious contact details.

The trap at the evidence stage: relying on a single archived screenshot dated close to the complaint filing. A panel wants to see that the domain was passively held across its registration history, not merely at the moment you started watching it. Build a longitudinal archive.

Step 4 – Draft, file, and manage the 20-day window

A complaint filed under the INDRP must meet the formal requirements set by NIXI: identification of the disputed domain, the basis for the complainant's trademark rights, the grounds for each of the three elements, and the relief requested – transfer or cancellation. The complaint is the whole story; panels decide on the written record. There is no oral hearing.

Once the complaint is formally accepted and the registrant is notified, the 20-day response window opens. What happens during those 20 days matters:

1. Monitor the domain's resolution. If it suddenly becomes active – pointing to a website, an email service, or a competitive offering – document it immediately. A late-stage activation can complicate the bad-faith analysis if you do not have a clean prior record of passivity.
2. Watch the RDDS record. Registrants who sense a complaint coming sometimes attempt to transfer the domain or update WHOIS data. The registrar should have locked the domain once the proceeding commenced, but verify.
3. Prepare for a supplemental filing request. If the registrant submits a response raising new evidence, you may wish to file a short supplemental submission addressing points not anticipated in your complaint. Most panels admit these only in limited circumstances.

If the registrant does not respond within 20 days, the panel proceeds on the complaint alone. Default does not automatically mean the complainant wins; the panel still reviews whether all three elements are established on the evidence in the complaint. A thin complaint that relies on default loses.

If a prior filing or response produced a bad outcome, a focused second read can find the element that was missed. Email info@cognomenlaw.com for an assessment.

What are the realistic outcomes, and what happens after a decision?

The INDRP, like the UDRP, offers two and only two remedies: transfer of the domain to the complainant, or cancellation of the registration. No monetary damages are available. No injunction issues. No costs are awarded against the losing party under the INDRP procedure itself.

Transfer is the usual outcome requested by brand owners. Cancellation – which removes the domain from the registry without transferring it to you – is useful only where you cannot or do not wish to hold a .in domain (for example, where eligibility restrictions apply), or where the priority is simply preventing the registrant from further use.

After a decision ordering transfer, the registry implements the order once any challenge period has passed. Implementation is ordinarily an administrative matter, but delays can occur if the registrant initiates a court action to stay the order. That is uncommon in practice but not unheard of; building a clean, well-documented complaint reduces the risk of a successful stay application.

What about Reverse Domain Name Hijacking? Where the registrant responds and the panel concludes the complaint was brought in bad faith – typically where the complainant had no viable trademark rights or knew the registrant had a legitimate interest – the panel may issue an RDNH finding. The finding carries no monetary consequence, but the reputational signal is real. We have defended registrants against INDRP complaints that had no valid trademark basis, and in our respondent-side practice we pursue RDNH findings wherever the facts support them.

Costs: what you pay to NIXI and what you pay for legal representation

The INDRP filing fee is set by NIXI and should be verified against NIXI's current fee schedule before filing, as the rate is subject to change. It is a modest official fee, substantially lower than the WIPO filing fee of USD 1,500 for a standard single-member UDRP proceeding covering one to five domains. Legal representation fees for a straightforward INDRP complaint are a separate line item and vary with the complexity of the mark-rights record and the volume of evidence required.

Contrast the cost calculus for a parallel multi-zone strategy. If you are recovering both the .in and the .com, the INDRP fee covers the .in proceeding, and the applicable UDRP forum fee (WIPO at USD 1,500, the Forum, CAC, or ADNDRC at their respective rates) covers the gTLD. Legal representation for the two proceedings can often share a common evidence base – the trademark portfolio, the RDDS records, the correspondence history – reducing incremental cost relative to treating them as entirely separate matters.

The trap: choosing the cheapest path in isolation. Where the registrant holds both the .in and the .com, filing the INDRP alone and deferring the UDRP means the registrant retains the gTLD domain during and after the INDRP proceeding, free to redirect traffic or re-list it for sale.

Related at COGNOMEN

• UDRP domain recovery: how COGNOMEN handles the full complaint process, from evidence to transfer
• Proving no legitimate interest under the UDRP: the element that decides most contested cases
• URS versus UDRP for new-gTLD domains: how to choose the right suspension or transfer route

Author: Cordelia Roe — UDRP complainant practice & gTLD recovery; domain transactions and brand protection. Meet the team.

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This publication is general information and does not constitute legal advice. For advice on your situation, contact info@cognomenlaw.com.