There are cases where one might think that such a finding was justified but it was not made and other cases where a finding has been made, but one might think the case for it was not particularly strong.
A recent case where a finding of RDNH was made and seems justified is M. Corentin Benoit Thiercelin v. CyberDeal, Inc. (WIPO Case No. D2010-0941), decided on August 10, 2010. Here, the domain name was registered 10 years before the Complainant’s trademark, so the claim was probably destined to fail, as the Complainant was going to have trouble showing registration in bad faith, apart from the other shortcomings in its case. Despite that, the allegation of bad faith was made and it turned out to be baseless.
The Panel was therefore able to say that:
“… a flagrantly insupportable claim was made as to the Respondent’s bad faith intent at time of registration of the Domain Name and the Panel can only assume that it was hoped that the Panel would miss the point. The Panel finds that the Complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding.”
A salutary reminder to practitioners and parties not to make such allegations in the absence of evidence.