WIPO Domain Name Panellists' Meeting 2017

(c) 2017 Jane Elizabeth Lambert: all rights reserved

jane Lambert

Every year the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) invites its panel of neutrals to its headquarters in Geneva for a day's CPD training. It usually takes place on the third Monday of October though there have been years when it has taken place before and after that date. I am a member of the panel and I have attended this event every year since 2005.

The day focuses on practical issues in domain name dispute resolution and particularly the UDRP (Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy) but there is always some discussion on wider issues. Immediately before Francis Gurry became Director-General the highpoint of the day for me was his summary of important developments in intellectual property law and that was often my main motivation for attending the event. In recent years he has been unable to attend every panellists' meeting in person, but he nearly always manages to send us a video message. This year the high point was a talk by a senior executive of one of the world's leading domain name registries entitled "DNS Industry Highlights" and an update on new gTLDs by officials of INTA and the WIPO.

After Dr Gurry's video and a welcome from our chair, Erik Wibers, the meeting began with a resumé of the WIPO's activities in relation to domain name dispute resolution since last year's meeting. The year ended 31 Dec 2016 was a busy year for the WIPO with 3,036 case filings under the UDRP (a 10% increase over the previous year) and more than 1,200 new gTLDs operational (see WIPO Cybersquatting Cases Hit Record in 2016, Driven by New Top-Level Domain Names 16 March 2017). The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Centre has also been appointed as a dispute resolution service provider for ".eu" and many other country code TLDs (see New .eu domain name ADR service and
Domain Name Dispute Resolution Service for Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs)).

Another important development has been the publication of a new WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Jurisprudential Overview 3.0”). This is an analysis of panellists' decisions on various issues under the UDRP. It is important reading for panellists and parties' legal representatives. Most of the talks addressed aspects of the Overview and were given by senior colleagues on the WIPO panel.

If anyone wants to discuss this port or domain name dispute resolution generally, call me on +44 (0)20 7404 5252 during office hours or send me a message through my contact form.