According to WIPO, the number of cases filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in 2009 decreased by 9.5% compared to the previous year.
In 2009, 2,107 cases were brought to the WIPO UDRP, compared to 2,329 cases in 2008.
Those complaints concerned 4,688 domain names, compared to 3,958 in 2008, according to a WIPO press release, meaning many cases included mulitple domains.
No breathless press release from WIPO this year.
the number probably runs paralel with how many companies went out of business or don’t have the cash to do things like going after domain names
Tim
This is what the good folks at WIPO are saying. The recession hit the global brands so hard they have no money to go after domains, except for Verizon which appearently has plenty.
Personally I think the are less instances of domain abuse
There was that one case (D2009-1661) involving Intercontinental hotel domains which had 1542 domain names, which skewed the stats. Most of those domain names were garbage (multiple hyphens).
Would agree that it is likely a reccessionary thing, I think WIPO use also declined during the .com bust.
@JohnBerryhill – didn’t you see the WIPO “headline”? This year there are more individual domain names (as opposed to group cases) than there were last year. So although — the WIPO spin goes — there were fewer cases, it’s actually a worrisome trend, which (of course) new gTLDs will exacerbate to such an extent that the sky will fall. See my comment on notice on Circle ID.
Companies rather learnt of how to save by filing more for less. Interesting facts indeed. Recession is the big player.