A London-based company dedicated to policing the internet for
intellectual property and brand owners, is calling for an urgent
tightening of controls for the policing of the net, following the
publication of its survey that shows a dramatic increase in meta
tag abuse, among intellectual property concerns.
Meta tags are HTML coding that most web sites use to let search
engines know what their sites are about. Meta tag abuse is usually
where one site contains the names of its competitors in its meta
tags to divert traffic to its own site. This can amount to trade
mark infringement or a legal wrong known as passing off, where one
business passes itself off as being associated with another.
Between May and September 2000, over 4,000 intellectual property
specialists in both Europe and the US were asked by Net Searchers
for their feedback on the current state of the industry.
The company’s Net Protection Survey 2000 involved questioning
law firms and in-house intellectual property lawyers within a wide
range of industries, ranging from IT to biotechnology or sports
marketing, who all deal with intellectual property issues.
The survey reveals that there has been a massive growth in all
types of intellectual property infringement since 1998. In a
comparison of results the new survey found:
- 90% of respondents have experienced domain name infringement on
the internet. This marks a 5 per cent increase from 1998.
- The number of Parody sites has risen by 2200 per cent.
- Counterfeiting has increased by 1650 per cent.
- Metatag infringements have risen by 1280 per cent.
- Copyright infringements saw a 105 per cent rise.
- 90% of infringements experienced by respondents were in the
.com jurisdiction, followed by Britain’s .co.uk suffix and
Germany’s .de.
The survey also found that 70% of those questioned have had to
negotiate large sums for the purchase of a domain name, a further
increase of 10% since 1998.
Over half of the survey’s respondents found themselves paying
third parties significant amounts for domain names – the most
frequently paid sums being in the £15,000 to £25,000 bracket,
followed by the £1,000 to £5,000 price range. The highest figure
paid for a domain name among those surveyed was £500,000.
96% of respondents wanted to see adoption of the Universal
Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the rules that are presently used
by WIPO and others in .com, .org and .net domain name disputes,
across country domains such as .uk and .fr. The take-up by country
registries of the UDRP has been slow.
81% of respondents were in support of the introduction of the
proposed European .eu domain name suffix. Over three quarters
thought that .eu should take measures to protect famous names to
ensure that names are only sold to those with a legitimate
claim.
There was also support for the introduction of new gTLDs, with
over 77% in favour. ICANN, the technical co-ordination body of the
internet, recently announced seven new Top Level Domains including
.pro, .info, .biz, .museum, .coop, .name and .aero. It is expected
that all new TLDs will be up and running by June 2001.
The survey’s findings revealed that few companies are taking
adequate measures to protect themselves from further fraud, despite
recognising how important IP protection on the net is to a modern
organisation. Only two thirds of respondents currently undertake
domain name watching and only half use a domain name renewals
management service.
Commenting on the survey findings, Nick Wood, Director of Net
Searchers, said:
“The protection of intellectual property on
the internet is about creating the right environment in which
e-commerce can flourish for customers and users alike. Businesses
need to be confident that when users tap in the name of their
company, they can reach it without being ambushed by a
pornographer, an activist or someone else trying to exploit that
name”.
“This survey shows just how concerned trade
mark owners are at increasingly high levels of infringement. I
firmly believe there needs to be more debate on the policies of the
domain name registries who allow anyone to register anything
without undertaking any checks and the value of the Uniform Dispute
Resolution Procedure. This system, introduced at the start of the
year, has now enabled nearly 1,000 trade mark owners to win back
stolen .com names held at a registry in the US from the pirates –
yet no European registry has yet adopted it”.
“It is of great concern to us that .UK is
becoming the domain of choice for infringers because the
authorities do not have a practical system in place to help those
who have been ripped off. When jurisdictions like the Cocos Islands
(.cc) or the Cook Islands (.co.ck) offer better protection than the
UK, something should be done!”
