Strategies to combat cybersquatting - abusive registrations of
domain names - and other policy issues relating to the management
of intellectual property conflicts in country code top level
domains (ccTLDs) will be discussed today at a conference in Geneva
hosted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Top level domains are divided into the seven existing generic
domains, or gTLDs, such as .com, .net and .org, and the numerous
ccTLDs such as .uk, .fr and .de. In cases of .com, .net or .org
cybersquatting, anyone wanting the transfer of a domain name from a
cybersquatter can argue his or her case before WIPO or one of three
other bodies authorised to hear disputes under rules known as the
UDRP (Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy), a form of alternative
dispute resolution.
With only a few exceptions, these four bodies cannot hear cases
for ccTLDs. The administrators of ccTLDs for 17 countries have
subsequently adopted the UDRP to assist with their domestic
cybersquatting disputes. However, the UK is not among them.
The administrator of the .uk domain is Nominet. It offers its
own alternative dispute resolution procedure, but this has proved a
less popular forum for cybersquatting cases than the UK courts.
The problems with courts are expense, delay and the fact that
the UK, like most other national courts, does not have specific
laws to deal with cybersquatting. Instead, these courts usually
rely on the remedies of passing off and trade mark infringement. An
advantage of the courts over the UDRP and Nominet systems is that
only the courts offer scope for damages claims.
The UDRP offers a simple, cheap and quick remedy to
cybersquatting disputes and today the conference will consider its
possible application to ccTLD disputes. Nominet argues that it
fails to take into account regional differences and that it only
caters for a narrow range of disputes.
The Conference will also mark the beginning of a two month
period for public comment on WIPO's Best Practices for Prevention
and Resolution of Intellectual Property Disputes in ccTLDs - a set
of voluntary intellectual property guidelines designed to assist
ccTLD administrators such as Nominet in the UK.
The conference will also hear from a representative of the
European Commission on the status of the forthcoming .eu top level
domain. The .eu domain has been approved in principle by ICANN, the
body with authority for the internet’s domain naming system. It is
for the Commission to revert to ICANN with detailed proposals for
the domain’s operation and administration.
