The appellate court first looked at the UCC's provisions concerning auctions, but noted that the UCC did not apply in this case because the UCC applies only to "goods," and domain names are not goods. The court then looked at common law principles as codified in the Restatement (Second) of Contracts. The rules under the Restatement are similar to those of the UCC: a bid in an auction is an offer that is accepted when the "hammer falls," and an auction is with reserve unless otherwise speci-fied by the seller.
The court also pointed out, however, that DotTV's charging of the bid price to Lim's credit card was inconsistent with DotTV's claim that it could withdraw the domain name from the bidding be¬cause the auction was with reserve. Furthermore, stated the court, even if it concluded that Lim's bid was an offer and not an acceptance, DotTV had accepted the offer by its e-mail to Lim stating that he had won the auction. In all, held the court, there was no evidence that a contract between DotTV and Lim had not been formed, and Lim had stated a valid claim against DotTV for breach of contract. The court thus reversed the lower court's decision and remanded the case for further delib¬eration consistent with the appellate court's opinion.