A total of 1,456 cybersquatting cases – i.e. abusive
registrations of trade marks as domain names – were filed with
WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center in 2005. That's 280 more
than in 2004 and represents the Center's biggest caseload
since 2001.
One reason for the increase could be the recent approval of
several new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) by ICANN, the body
that manages the internet's domain name system.
Cybersquatters seem to have taken advantage of the
introduction of these domains – including .jobs and
.travel – to file a new batch of exploitative registrations.
Francis Gurry, Deputy Director General of WIPO, who oversees the
work of the Center, said the rise "underlines the need for
continued vigilance by intellectual property owners."
He also noted that, while 80% of disputes relate to .com
names, attention must also be paid to the establishment of
robust preventive mechanisms against abusive registration in new
gTLDs.
"If domain names are randomly attributed in new domains,
intellectual property owners will be forced to compete with
cybersquatters for their own trade marks – unless additional
preventive safeguards are introduced," he added.
The Center published a report in 2005 setting out some
recommendations for dealing with the problem. The report, New
Generic Top-Level Domains: Intellectual Property
Considerations, recommended the introduction of a uniform
preventive intellectual property protection mechanism in all new
gTLDs, in order to complement the curative relief provided by the
UDRP.
The agency has handled over 8,350 disputes, involving parties
from 127 countries and covering some 16,000 domain names, since the
Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy came into effect in December
1999.
Of these, 8,054 (96.41%) have been resolved, says WIPO. In the
6,349 decisions they have rendered, WIPO panels have found
for the complainant in 5,327 (83.9%) cases. The remainder
of the resolved cases were settled by the parties.
