[council] WIPO Handles its 25,000th Domain Name Case

["Philip Sheppard" <philip.sheppard@xxxxxx>]

 Press Release 463


Geneva, October 16, 2006

  _____  

        

WIPO HANDLES ITS 25,000TH DOMAIN NAME CASE


In just seven years of operation, the caseload of the Arbitration and Mediation 
Center of
the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) topped the 25,000 mark with 
a case that
has just been decided. Since it launched its domain name dispute resolution 
services, the
WIPO Center has resolved disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute 
Resolution Policy
(UDRP) and various other policies. The 25,000th case related to a 
cybersquatting dispute
handled under the UDRP in which the panelist ordered the transfer of the domain 
name
<redlionhotels.com> to the trademark owner, the Red Lion Hotels chain.

In the period since the launch of its dispute resolution services under the 
UDRP in December
1999 through August 2006, 9,567 UDRP or UDRP-based cases (generic top level 
domains, gTLDs
and country code top-level domains, ccTLDs) have been filed with the WIPO 
Center, covering
17,912 separate domain names involving parties from 136 countries.

These figures rise to 25,085 cases (please see Annex 1) when the caseload of 
the various ad
hoc "sunrise" dispute resolution policies, designed to avoid the flood of 
cybersquatting
cases generated by the initial introduction of domain names, namely .info 
Sunrise, .biz
STOP, .name ERDRP and .mobi Sunrise cases, are taken into account. As these 
policies are
applicable for a limited time, these cases are received on a non-recurring, 
one-off basis.
With the exception of the cases in the .mobi domain, which has commenced only 
recently, all
WIPO sunrise cases have been resolved. These so-called sunrise policies 
established
procedures that offered trademark owners additional means to preempt and 
counter abusive and
bad-faith registration of their trademarks as domain names within a specified 
start-up
phase.

Most of the 9,567 UDRP and UDRP-based disputes concern international domains, 
with .com
representing some 79% of names involved, followed by .net (11%), .org (6%), 
.info (2%), and
.biz, .travel, .aero and .edu (jointly 2%).

Of the total of 9,567 UDRP and UDRP-based cases the Center has received through 
August 2006,
8,936 (97%) have been resolved. In the 7,011 decisions they have rendered, WIPO 
panels have
found for the complainant in 5,842 (84%) cases and 1,112 (16%) were denied. The 
remainder of
the resolved cases were settled by the parties.

The 9,567 UDRP and UDRP-based cases included 418 cases involving domain names 
registered in
ccTLDs. Three hundred and eighty eight of these have now been resolved, through 
240
decisions in favor of the complainant, 43 decisions in favor of the respondent 
and 105
settlements between the parties, with 30 cases still pending. The Center now 
provides
services for disputes in 47 ccTLDs (full list available at
<http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/cctld/> 
http://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/cctld/) such
as .au (Australia), .ch (Switzerland), .co (Colombia), .fr (France), .mx 
(Mexico), and .tv
(Tuvalu). The latest domain to join this list has been .es (Spain) in early 
2006.

The Center also offers dispute resolution services for registrations in 
non-Roman
("non-ASCII") scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic or Korean 
("internationalized"
domain names) and has so far received 60 complaints in relation to such names, 
of which six
are pending. The number such cases is expected to increase in future. The 
Center has managed
proceedings in 12 languages, namely, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, 
Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

For background information on the UDRP and related information, please see
<http://www.wipo.int/edocs/prdocs/en/2006/wipo_pr_2006_435.html>
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/prdocs/en/2006/wipo_pr_2006_435.html.

For further information about all the activities of the Center, please visit 
the Center's
web site at  <http://www.wipo.int/amc/> http://www.wipo.int/amc/ or contact the 
Media
Relations and Public Affairs Section at WIPO:

*       
Tel: (+41 22) 338 81 61 or (+41 22) 338 95 47;

*       
E-mail:  <mailto:publicinf@xxxxxxxx> publicinf@xxxxxxxx

*       
Fax: (+41 22) 338 82 80.

Annex 1  

         
UDRP

.info

.biz STOP

.name EDRP

.mobi

Sunrise

Total


1999

1

-

-

-

         1


2000

1,857

-

-

-

         1,857


2001

1,557

1,579

53

-

         3,189


2002

1,207

13,593

285

1

         15,086


2003

1,100

-

-

-

         1,100


2004

1,176

-

-

3

         1,179


2005

1,456

-

-

1

         1,457


Jan-August 2006

1,213

-

-

-

3

1,216


Total

9,567

15,172

338

5

3

25,085