Alternative domain name dispute resolution service providers administered more cases than ever, such as WIPO whose case rate increased by 22%.
- WIPO: 5128 cases
- Forum: 2059 UDRP cases
- ADR.EU: 653 cases (including 605 UDRP and 48 euDRP)
- HKIAC: 225 cases (including 172 UDRP, 42 cnDRP and 7 hkDRP)
- CIETAC: 145 cases (including 84 UDRP and 61 cnDRP)
- CIIDRC: 48 decisions (including 23 UDRP and 25 caDRP)
- ACDR: 2 UDRP cases
The Arbitration and Mediation Center of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) provides detailed statistics (wipo.int). WIPO received 5,128 complaints (+22%) targeting 8,769 domain names, which represents an increase of 22%. Moreover, around 71% of the decisions were in favor of the complainant.
At the same time, the total number of active domain names (364.6 million) decreased by 1.6% (Verisign, The Domain Name Industry Brief, Q33 2021, Vol. 18, Issue 4, p. 2). Can one conclude that the proportion of “bad” domain names has increased? At first glance, the data seems to call for an affirmative answer. An analysis of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) reports on cases of domain name abuse (icann.org) could confirm such a hypothesis. Let’s therefore wait for the publication of the last two reports, November 2021 and December 2021 (ibid.). Alternatively, the increase of cases can also be explained by other factors: better awareness of the risks associated with the misuse of domain names; the use of monitoring tools; a change of strategy in the fight against cybersquatting; an increase in the budget allocated to the protection of intellectual property rights.
The number of domain names per procedure has never been very regular. However, since 2018, following the entry into force of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the downward trend observed in previous years seems to be confirmed.
