WIPO wraps up first paperless domain dispute

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has resolved its first domain infringement dispute in a fully digital format, just a few weeks after the greener and more efficient system was launched. Phased in as one of several changes to WIPO's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the paperless method will be the sole route for filing complaints from 1 March 2010.

Brought by telecommunications manufacturer Nokia against individual respondent Jameela Seif, the dispute was handled by WIPO's Arbitration and Mediation Centre in a process that took just 37 days. Hard-copy complaints, by contrast, can take up to two months. The improved speed should give other potential complainants the confidence that they will see prompt results from the system. The resolution ordered that a clutch of disputed domains should be transferred to Nokia, with WIPO panellist Brigitte Joppich commenting that the case bore all the characteristics that the UDRP was set up to tackle.

WIPO implemented the paperless system on 14 December, one week after a rule change by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) paved the way for the policy. Aiming to save UDRP complainants time and money, the system is also likely to eliminate up to one million hard-copy pages per year from reaching the Arbitration and Mediation Centre's back office.

According to WIPO, user reactions to the paperless process have been highly positive, and a total of 182 disputes have been filed under the system since it launched. 'We are very pleased to finally be able to file a fully electronic UDRP almost exactly a decade after the first UDRP complaint,' said Nokia legal representative David Taylor. 'The paperless e-UDRP is a natural progression and benefits not just complainants but … respondents as well.' Its environmental purpose, he added, takes away 'the burdensome and wasteful process of preparing numerous paper versions, and inherently speeds up the process without any prejudice to the parties'.

WIPO's successful completion of the paperless dispute comes as the domain name landscape prepares for a population boom. Sparked by ICANN's plans to introduce in select countries non-Latin versions of the national web designations known as country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs), the boom has edged closer to reality with the approval of four new internationalised domain names. Following a battery of tests, which have cleared the domains for technical usability and ensured they will not cause confusion among web users, the new ccTLDs have been awarded to Saudi Arabia, the Russian Federation, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt. The domains are now eligible for inclusion in the domain names root system, and will be accessible from anywhere in the world by the middle of this year. The initiative aims to promote improved internet access in non-English-speaking countries.

In an announcement, ICANN president Rod Beckstrom said that the approval of the new ccTLDs marked 'a pivotal moment in the history of Internet domain names'. The organisation is currently processing 16 further applications for non-Latin domains in eight different languages, and expects to receive many more in the early part of 2010.

Electronic domain name complaints can be filed at WIPO's Arbitration and Mediation Centre by emailing domain.disputes@wipo.int. To find out more about the amended rules for filing complaints, go to www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/supplemental/eudrp/.