WIPO reaches milestone with 5000th domain dispute

[RJ]

WIPO CASES HIT THE MARK AS 5000th DISPUTE RECEIVED

23rd May, 2003

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced that it received its 5,000th domain name case under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) this month.

The case itself was auspicious - according to WIPO, the British football club Tottenham Hotspur have issued a complaint against an alleged cybersquatter - from WIPO's website it looks as though the domain name in dispute may be tottenhamhotspur.com, currently registered to a company in Middlesex, UK. A decision is expected shortly.

The WIPO Arbitration Center states that it receives an average of 3 new UDRP cases each day, a rate which indicates that trade mark/domain name issues continue to be of importance. This average has dropped from a peak of 5 cases per day. While this means less cases for WIPO, the Organization does not seem to regret the reduction in business:-

"This trend is encouraging and indicates that the expedited on-line dispute resolution service has been effective in dissuading Internet pirates from hijacking names," said Francis Gurry, Assistant Director General of WIPO, the principal in charge of WIPO's work relating to domain names.

"This doesn't mean that our work is over - we must continue our efforts to ensure that the Internet becomes a secure market place for people to do business. Preventing abuse of intellectual property rights in a digital environment that is expanding by the day is a large part of that effort."

According to WIPO, its Arbitration Center website, where all of its decisions are published, has received over 30 million hits, indicating much interest in the UDRP phenomenon. Some of the most visited decisions are the famous Madonna, Sting and Julia Roberts cases. Madonna and Julia Roberts won their cases, whereas Sting was unsuccessful.

WIPO also reported statistics on the language of cases and geographical distribution of the parties. Decisions have been issued in Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, while the parties involved span 110 countries. The USA is the top country for complainants with 46.8%, followed by the United Kingdom at 9%, with a similar pattern emerging for the respondents.

The most unusual statistic of all released by WIPO is that the majority of disputed domain names focus on food, alcohol and restaurants; fashion; entertainment; Internet and information technology; and media and publishing. No figures were given for the relative popularity of these subjects but clearly consumer activity has, in the past, been an Aladdin's Cave for cybersquatters on a shopping spree.

Source: Demy's

Links:

World Intellectual Property Organization

 

[Jeff]

Great information for any truly serious domainer, RJ ... thanks for the post! Interesting stats, as well.
Appreciate it.