According to Google’s count, there were 127 stories published online yesterday about the report from WIPO that “cybersquatting” cases increased 8% last year.
As one of the readers to this blog commented yesterday in response to my post, each of these 127 stories made it sound that Cybersquatting was totally out of control based on this 8% increase. Most of the stories like the one by Reuters, lead with the headline “Cybersquatting Cases Hit Record” or “Cybersquatting Complaints Soar to Highest Level”.
None of the 127 stories (that I read) discussed the overall increase in domain namesregistrations in relation to the number of cases filed.
So out of the 2,239 cases filed 30% were resolved without decision and 15% were won by the domain holder.
Therefore your looking at just over 1,400 cases that went to panel and came back with a decision in favor of the complaintant.
On the other hand Verisign reported earlier this year that the for 2008, there were 177 million domain name registrations across all of the TLD’s which represented an increase of 16% over the previous year.
My math tells me if registrations increase 16%, and disputes increase 8% the number of cybersquatting cases are falling in proportion to registrations.
1,400 cases out of 177,000,000 what percentage does that come to?
I don’t have enough zero’s on my calculator to figure that one out.
Funny how I did not about this in any of the 127 articles from yesterday.
on the “real” story which is WIPO is going to try to put the burden on registrars to police trademark infrigement, including expanding the definantion of what is included as a trademark,
Yes, this press release is not about the rise in cybersquatting, it is only about the rise:
– of *filings*
– *before the WIPO*
It seems that, in the same time, the number of proceedings before the NAF (the other leading arbitration center) has slightly declined.
And the number of decisions in favor of the respondent in 2008 goes up to 15% from 14% in 2007 (as I noted on my blog yesterday as soon as I read the press release: http://domaine.blogspot.com/2009/03/le-contentieux-udrp-en-2008.html)
In 2000, there have been 1,857 disputes before the WIPO, and about 10 million .com names. In 2007, there were 2,329 litiges but more than 75 million .com domain names!
No one talks about reverse domain hi-jacking that big companies do to get generic domains. It is a crime that goes unpunished because they run the game.
Can you please do a post on domains won i.e. (rocky.com) and others that were clearly reverse hi-jacked?
We talk about reserve hijacking
Here’s just a couple of our posts on the subject:
http://www.thedomains.com/2009/03/03/why-isnt-this-reverse-hijacking/
http://www.thedomains.com/2008/12/19/today-we-call-out-jimmy-choo-for-attempted-reserve-hijacking-why-is-there-no-penalty-for-this/
Now as far as Rocky.com I see it is owned by MGM studio who made the rocky movies, beyond that I have no details about the case.
However it would be important to see what date the domain was originally registered and what appeared on the site when the domain holder had it before it was taken