WIPO’s headline is misleading.
Today World Intellectual Property Forum (WIPO) did its annual release of how many UDRP cases it handled last year. It was a record 2,696 cases.
That’s a lot of cases, and National Arbitration Forum also saw an increase in cases this year.
But I take issue with WIPO’s headline:
Cybersquatting Hits Record Level
A more accurate headline would be Cybersquatting Enforcement Hits Record Level.
It reminds me of when the border patrol says “we’ve recovered a record amount of drugs crossing the borders this year.”
Is that because people tried to smuggle more drugs or because border patrol did a better job catching them?
I briefly analyzed the rise in UDRP cases when I wrote about this last month. A couple notes I made:
– While the number of cases was up, the ratio of cases to total domains registered has only been lower once in the past decade.
– The spike in cases can largely be attributed to a few mass filers using trademark enforcement companies. For example, Lego filed over 100 cases with the help of Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services. I should also note that Lego’s actions seemed to be directed at people who were selling Lego goods on these web sites — it seems to be less of a cybersquatting issue than an a counterfeit/unauthorized reseller crackdown.
Harry says
How many fortune 500 companies are left without their brands and almost 90% of typos recovered?
A lot of these new cases are fraudulent hi-jacking attempts, but they don’t say ANYTHING about that?
IMO the tagline should read: Wipo helping steal valuable generic domains for a small fee of $2 Grand.
Estufas says
Who really knows? I’d say that I have been noticing the TM typos being dropped quite steadily for the last two years.
How many new ones a regged during that type is anyone’s guess.
John McCormac says
The increase in ccTLD actions is interesting. The .com and the gTLDs are obvious targets for brand protection but tracking possible infringements in ccTLDs is a bit more complex. Scare headlines work better with the non-technical media and referring to it as “cybersquatting” rather than “cybersquatting enforcement” makes it an easy press release for non-technical journalists to recycle.