A friend of mine let one of his domains expire and get picked up by someone else. He had active content and was doing good business on the site. He asked the new owner to buy it back but he quoted an prohibitive price. I told him that he'd lost the domain forever but he says there is a rule that allows previous owners to reclaim domains up to one year after expiration. Has anyone heard of such a rule and do you know of any documentation on this?
I never heard about it. I'm not very sure about this I guess the domain can claimed within 15days of expiration if you forget to re-new it. Again, I'm not very sure it.
I think the first owner was forgot to renew after expire, then the domains was deleted, and anyone could take that deleted domain, not expired domain. That's a some time between Expiry and Deleting the domain.
If he has trademarks etc then he might be able to do something, I would be asking a lawyer not a forum like this.
If we're especially talking about a .com, there's no such rule as the others did say. Perhaps your friend can give an example to help understand what she or he really meant. As save suggested, unless your friend has, say, established a trademark right to the domain name and that domain name's current use or so is infringing it, then there's no way to get that domain other than trying to buy it back. The trouble with some people is they seem to think they have perpetual rights to it no matter what happens, which can cause unnecessary delusion.