Cybersquatting Data and Information from WIPO

from a press release by the World Intellectual Property Organization on January 25, 2006:

• An average of 4 UDRP and UDRP-based cases were filed with WIPO per calendar day in 2005, bringing the total number of cases received in 2005 to 1,456 – an increase of 280 cases (almost 20%) as compared to 2004.
• Of the total of 8,354 UDRP and UDRP-based cases the Center has received, 8,054 (96.41%) have been resolved. 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.
• WIPO’s UDRP and UDRP-based cases filed since 1999 have by now covered some 16,000 separate domain names.
• Most disputes concern international domains, with .com again representing over 80% of names involved. However, in 2005 the Center also dealt with 44 cases involving country code top-level domains (ccTLDs).
• So far, parties to WIPO UDRP disputes have come from 127 different countries. The Center has managed proceedings in 12 languages, namely, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
• The Center has handled 52 multilingual domain name (with characters from in non-English scripts) disputes so far, with further growth expected as the Internet becomes increasingly multilingual.

All domain name decisions handled by WIPO's Domain Name Dispute Resolution Service Center are fully indexed and published on the Center’s web site at http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/search/index.html; this legal Index rates among the most-viewed WIPO web pages. The new WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, which the Center has created to offer parties and panelists an overview of broad decision trends, is available at http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/search/overview.

The Center’s new report, "New Generic Top-Level Domains: Intellectual Property Considerations", recommends 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 Report is available at http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/reports/newgtld-ip.

Non-domain name activities of the Center:- Model WIPO arbitration and mediation clauses can be downloaded from http://arbiter.wipo.int/arbitration/contract-clauses/index.html.- The optional WIPO Electronic Case Facility (WIPO ECAF) introduced in 2005 may be viewed at http://arbiter.wipo.int/ecaf/introduction.jsp.

The next Center training events: WIPO Workshop for Mediators in Intellectual Property Disputes on June 15 and 16, 2006; WIPO Advanced Workshop for Mediators in Intellectual Property Disputes on June 19 and 20, 2006. Program information and registration at http://arbiter.wipo.int/events/index.