The former Network Solutions missed a deadline for asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse its July ruling sending Gary Kremen's bid to hold it liable for the 1995 Sex.com domain hijack back to a lower court for retrial.
Now known as VeriSign, the company had until August 8 to file a motion to reverse that decision, all but assuring that Kremen's suit – accusing the company of allowing the domain ownership switch without checking if it was being done under false pretenses – goes forward.
"They blew the deadline," said Kremen when reached by AVN.com. "I can't believe it." He said the case has arrived back at the lower court as of August 21.
Cohen used forged letters to snatch Sex.com from Kremen in 1995. Kremen took Cohen to court and won a $65 million judgment, but Cohen has long since fled the United States and is believed living in Mexico.
The 9th Circuit Court had ruled July 25 that Internet domain names are subject to state property law. VeriSign can still take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the high court isn't thought likely to rule on the state issues the 9th Circuit Court addressed. The high court earlier rejected Cohen's last bid to get the judgment against him turned aside.
Kremen, however, is watching carefully enough, saying the high court will periodically rule on such issues if questions like real or alleged concerns about national security or national economic implications are raised.
"(VeriSign has) actually claimed (before) that if this happens," he said, referring to their being held liable in the Sex.com theft, "the price of domain registrations would be more expensive than a Lexus. They actually said something like that in court once. But they have nothing to back that up."
Writing for the appeals court, Judge Alex Kozinski said in the July ruling that it was not unfair to hold a company responsible for giving away someone else's property, even if the company in question wasn't directly at fault.
"Cohen is obviously the guilty party here, and the one who should in all fairness pay for his theft," Kozinski continued. "…The question becomes whether (VeriSign) should be open to liability for its decision to hand over Kremen's domain name…It would not be unfair to hold (VeriSign) responsible and force it to try to recoup its losses by chasing down Cohen."
