The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) announced there were an unprecedented number of cybersquatting cases in 2007. WIPO also said the evolving nature of the domain name registration system is causing growing concern for trademark owners around the world.

In 2007 there were a record 2,156 complaints alleging cybersquatting filed with the WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center (Center). This was an 18% increase over 2006 and a 48% increase over 2005 in the number of generic and country code Top Level Domain (gTLDs and ccTLDs) disputes.

“These increases confirm that ‘cybersquatting’ remains a significant issue for rights holders,” said Mr. Francis Gurry, WIPO Deputy Director General, who oversees WIPO’s dispute resolution work. Mr Gurry notes a number of developments in the DNS are also cause for concern from the perspective of intellectual property holders, as well as Internet users generally. Among these are the use of privacy services to shield abusive registrations and the evolving role of certain domain name registrars, together with the ongoing trademark abuse reflected in WIPO’s caseload, raise concerns about the introduction of a number of new gTLDs announced for late 2008.

“The potentially useful purposes of any new domains would be frustrated if these get filled predominantly with automated pay-per-click content,” said Mr. Gurry, adding “It comes down to a question of quantity versus quality. If the stated purpose of new gTLDs is to increase choice and competition in domain registration services, due consideration must be given to ICANN’s core UDRP principles during the policy development work and implementation plans. This is not just an issue of protecting rights of trademark holders, but also an issue of the reliability of the addressing system of the Internet in matching interested parties with authentic subjects.” Mr. Gurry said WIPO is ready to assist ICANN in its policy work in this regard.

The biotechnology and pharmaceuticals industries accounted for just over one in ten (10.04%) complaints, with banking and finance (9.53%), internet and IT (9.34%) also making up industries from where significant complaints came from.

WIPO parties settled a quarter of all cases without a panel decision. Of the remainder, 85 per cent of panel decisions ordered transfer of the domain names in question to the complainant and 15 per cent of complaints were denied, leaving the names in the possession of the registration holder.

The cases WIPO dealt with continued to reflect current trends and upcoming events. For example, hybrid car technology; the Airbus A380; social network services such as Facebook and MySpace; 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and the comeback music tour of The Police were all involved in cases.

Of the 3,298 disputed domain names involving gTLDs, .com was responsible for almost three-quarters of cases (2,424 and 73.59%). .net (287 cases), .info (245) and .org (227) followed. ccTLDs made up 251 cases. Collectively the number of disputed ccTLD domain names has been increasing over the years, having moved from less than 1% in the year 2000 to over 7% in 2007.

The most frequent source of complaints lodged with WIPO with almost 45 per cent (5,741) of cases was the United States followed by France with just over ten per cent of (1,308) cases. This was followed by the UK (969 cases), Germany (718) and Switzerland 9641). For the location of the respondent, just over 40 per cent of cases (5,125) involved respondents in the United States followed by the UK with close to nine per cent (1,089). This was followed by China (640 cases), Canada (616) and Spain (582).

WIPO also expressed concern about domain tasting, noting ICANN and Google have both suggested ways of rectifying the problem. Other areas of concern were privacy of registrants and registrars. On registrant privacy, WIPO is concerned that privacy shields of registrant data should not be used to protect cybersquatting practices. Regarding registrars, there has been explosion in the number of registrars in recent years with some of these registrars appearing to engage in or collude with cybersquatting practices. WIPO is concerned that this situation can blur the distinction between the ICANN-mandated obligations of a registrar and speculative behaviour in the domain name marketplace, often at the expense of trademark holders.

The WIPO news release is available at www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2008/article_0015.html.