The stolen domain name Patterns.com has been returned to its owner. The domain name was stolen from Cosmic Patterns Software, Inc. via their Network Solutions domain name registrar account. The thief and hacker accessed the account and transferred the domain name to their BizCN registrar account. BizCN was uncooperative, and refused to return the domain name to its owner. Therefore, DNProtect, with the help of Daniel Prince, a domain name attorney, filed a UDRP domain name dispute. They were successful with the UDRP, and the domain name is being returned to it’s owner.
History of Events
In June 2021, the owner of the domain name Patterns.com contacted DNProtect with a request for assistance in recovering their stolen domain name. The Network Solutions account was compromised by the domain name thief, and the hacker had transferred the domain name to the registrar BizCN.com. Network Solutions was made aware of the incident. DNProtect contacted BizCN, and they were uncooperative in returning the domain name to its owner. Therefore, DNProtect, along with the assistance of domain name attorney Daniel Prince of Epik.com, filed a UDRP domain name dispute (Cosmic Patterns Software, Inc. v. tian qin lei, Claim Number: FA2201001981716).
UDRP Decision
In the UDRP decision, two areas of contention were addressed: Cosmic Patterns Software, Inc. had been using “Patterns” for several years, and the current registrant of the domain name, tian qin lei of China, had obtained the domain name in a fraudulent manner.
From the UDRP decision:
Complainant’s contentions can be summarised as follows:
Complainant has common law rights in the PATTERNS mark based upon use of the mark in commerce for astrological software services for over twenty years.
The Domain Name is identical to Complainant’s PATTERNS marks for the purposes of the Policy coupled only with the gTLD “.com”. Complainant previously owned the Domain Name before Respondent fraudulently acquired it in November 2020 via a deception perpetrated on the Complainant’s registrar.
Accordingly Respondent does not have rights or legitimate interests in the Domain Name. Respondent offers the Domain Name for sale. The Domain Name is currently being used for pay per click links. Respondent registered and uses the Domain Name in bad faith following its fraudulent acquisition.
This domain name, Patterns.com, was stolen from it’s owner around the same time that other domain names starting with the letter P were stolen, including Perl.com, and Piracy.com. I performed a search at DomainIQ for the respondent’s name, tian qin lei, and found two domain names that are associated with this same person. I don’t know if those other domain names were stolen as well, but I will be investigating them to make sure that they weren’t stolen. There may be other domain names that this individual owns, but they may be listed under domain name privacy, so it may be difficult to find them via a search at websites such as DomainIQ.
If you think your domain name was stolen from you, I recommend reading this post of mine about stolen domain names. Then, if you think it’s stolen, contact DNProtect who will work to get your stolen domain name recovered.