Domain Registration Related News
WIPO publishes case book of domain name
decisions
March 2005
The World Intellectual Property Organisation
has published an overview of trends in its 7,000
domain name dispute decisions since 1999. It is,
in effect, a free online case book about
cybersquatting that can help parties to gauge
their chances before action.
All decisions under the Uniform Domain Name
Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) the guidelines
for deciding most .com, .net and .org domain name
disputes have been available online for the past
six years. But this is the first time that WIPO
has compiled comprehensive guidance on how its
panellists have interpreted the UDRP.
The research considers common and important
substantive and procedural questions that have
been extracted from the cases through February
2005.
For example, to convince a WIPO panellist that
someone is cybersquatting on your brand, you need
to show that the disputed domain name is identical
or confusingly similar to your trade mark. If
someone registers a "sucks" site e.g.
nikesucks.com is that confusingly similar to
Nike's trade mark?
The answer is generally yes, according to the
research. The majority view is that: "A domain
name consisting of a trade mark and a negative
term is confusingly similar to the complainants
mark." A brief explanation follows: it may be, for
example, that the non-fluent English speakers
would not recognise the negative connotations of
"sucks."
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