Three industries drive record WIPO cybersquatting cases

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) handled a record-high of 3,074 cybersquatting disputes in 2017 under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Statistics released today by WIPO show that three industries—banking and finance, fashion, and internet and IT—accounted for nearly one-third of all disputes.

Top filers in the banking and finance industry included US bank Zions Bank (36 complaints), personal finance company Credit Karma (18) and French bank Natixis (14).

In fashion, clothing brand Golden Goose dominated with 19 filings. Online shop ASOS and cosmetics brand L'Oréal took second and third places with 16 and ten disputes respectively.

Online chat website Chatroulette led the way in the internet and IT industry with 46 complaints, followed by professional services company Accenture (13) and social media site Facebook (12).

Parties from 112 countries were involved in case filings last year, with 920 cases stemming from the US. This was followed by France (462), the UK (276), Germany (222), and Switzerland (143).

Cybersquatting disputes involving new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) accounted for more than 12% of WIPO’s 2017 caseload, which in total covered 6,370 domain names. Registrations in .store, .site and .online were the most commonly disputed new gTLDs.

WIPO appointed 298 panellists based in 45 countries in 2017, and administered proceedings in 15 different languages.

Francis Gurry, WIPO director general, said: “By abusing trademarks in the domain name system, cybersquatting undermines legitimate commerce and harms consumers. This is true especially where squatters use domain names to offer counterfeit goods or for phishing, as is seen in numerous WIPO cases.”

He added that the UDRP procedure is an “indispensable support” for protection against fraudulent practices.