WIPO Shares Some Facts About 2017 UDRP Filings

It seems that UDRP filings have been increasing every year, and 2017 was no different. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the largest UDRP provider. Yesterday evening, WIPO published a report about UDRP filings in 2017, and I wanted to share some of the facts with you.

2017 WIPO UDRP Facts:

  • 3,074 UDRP filings
  • Three industries (Banking / finance, fashion, and internet / IT) accounted for nearly one-third of all cybersquatting disputes.
  • .Store, .Site, and .Online were the most frequently disputed new gTLD extensions.
  • The US had the most UDRP filings.
  • Philip Morris filed the most UDRP disputes
  • Since 1999, there have been over 39,000 UDRP filings encompassing over 73,000 domain names.

Keep in mind that these facts are from WIPO UDRP filings and don’t include other venues, such as the National Arbitration Forum, The Czech Arbitration Court Arbitration Center for Internet Disputes, Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre or others. Although the UDRP requirements are the same in order for a complainant to prevail, each venue has different fees, some have different panelists, and they may have differing ground rules. This means that some of the facts from WIPO UDRP cases may be different than other UDRP providers.

While I tend to focus on some of the more egregious (in my opinion) filings that involve generic and valuable acronym domain names, it seems quite clear that the vast majority of UDRP disputes involve pretty obvious cases of cybersquatting. The WIPO report shared that in the banking and finance sectors, complainants regularly cited fraud, phishing or scam as the basis for the UDRP. In fashion, counterfeiting was the main issue cited. These are big problems for companies, and the UDRP process is still a cost effective way for brands to reduce these problems.

I think there are some big issues with the UDRP in general, but I think it works well for the majority of cases.

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

7 COMMENTS

  1. As usual, there is one number which WIPO will NEVER report in its annual UDRP statistics.

    And, yes, for the class of circumstances which it was designed to address, it works fine.

  2. In 2017 I had a UDRP filed against me by a national American bank for one of the thousands of four-letter .com domains in my portfolio. I talked with Mr. Berryhill about representing me but I decided to go it alone on this one. I wrote my response and lost. A one-member panel, an IP lawyer in San Diego, ruled to transfer the domain away. The decision was wrong and I was mad. I prepared a complaint to file in federal court. I emailed the complaint to the bank executives and their lawyer. They were very understanding and expeditiously returned the domain to me. They even drafted an agreement clarifying my rights to the domain. Always remember, WIPO decisions are not binding in a court of law. They are merely the views and recommendations from panelists who get it wrong all the time. This also goes for those who are ruled to be guilty of reverse domain name hijacking by panelists. WIPO panelists get it wrong on both sides.

    Btw, I just saw a national commercial on the Saturday morning show “Dog Whisperer” for Embrace Pet Insurance. Website embracepetinsurance•com. I hope to read in this blog WITHIN the next year that you sold embrace•com for $300K.

    • Nice story. Glad you got the name back. Did they ever make an offer to purchase your domain name?

      I wouldn’t sell Embrace.com for $300k. I’ve turned down several strong offers and have no interest in selling it.

    • They made no offer to purchase and didn’t want the domain at all. They were only concerned about traffic being sent to their competitors.

      I hope you get offered a number you can’t refuse.

    • Todd,
      I consider you an extremely sharp individual. And, successful so money should not be a consideration.

      But, you made a big mistake in not using one of the IP lawyers to represent you. Many novice might think it is a wise decision to represent themselves over a ‘valuable’ domain. Extremely risky.

      You were very lucky you got the domain back but I would not recommend others to use that strategy.

      Again, I highly respect your business skills but you took an unnecessary risk. Plus, you now have one negative mark against you if and when you have to fight another udrp.

      PS. Thanks to John Berryhill and Stevan Lieberman for making themselves available.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Recent Posts

2024 Global Domain Report Released Today

0
The annual Global Domain Report, produced jointly by InterNetX and Sedo, has been released and is now available to download at no cost. The...

Grok Knows .com

5
Grok is a generative AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk's company, xAI. Grok has been promoted within the X / Twitter ecosystem, and X...

Dynadot Now Offering Cryptocurrency Payments

1
Dynadot just announced that it now offers customers the ability to make payments using cryptocurrency. The offering is made via Bitpay, which supports more...

Sedo to Host .AI Auction

0
.AI domain names have become a popular topic of late. Some of the most popular domain industry auctions these days are the monthly expiry...

Scaffolding Company Gets Industry Matching .com for Under $50k

0
Sedo’s Senior Broker Dave Evanson reported the sale of Scaffolding.com yesterday. The domain name sold for $46,666, and it was the largest domain name...