Domain Name

Services

Domain News

Year : 2008

Domain News

Domain Name

Trademark based-Domain Names have become a precious corporate asset that both large and small companies are willing to protect against unauthorized use or abusive registration. Yet, protecting those domain names at an international level may prove costly and complicated. For these simple reasons the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") wisely implemented two documents that have been crucial for companies engaged in protecting their domain names. The first document is the called "Dispute Resolution Policy" ("Dispute Policy") and the second document is called "Rules for Uniform Domain Name Disputes Resolution Policy" ("Dispute Rules"). This article briefly explains these two international measures to solve domain name controversies.

ICANN Dispute Resolution Policy is an alternative dispute resolution mechanism to help companies defend their domain names, implemented in 1999. Registrars in the .com, .info, .net, .org, .biz, .name, top-level domain follow the 'Dispute Policy' procedures to defend their domain names in two types of disputes; (1) trademark-based disputes, and (2) disputes arising from abusive registration of domain names which is commonly known as cybersquatting. In addition to the above top-level domain names, other country-code top-level domains have adopted the ICANN Dispute Policy. For example, .nu, .tv, .ws. Thus, country-code top-level domain holders facing domain name controversies (or those doing prior analysis) should search whether their country registrar has adopted the ICANN Dispute Policy. It is important to note that the terms of the ‘Dispute Policy" will be automatically incorporated within the Registration Agreement between the registrar and the domain name holder (or country code registrars).

According to the ‘Dispute Policy' procedures, trademark-based disputes may be solved by agreement between the parties, court action, or arbitration. In this case, the complaint must be filed before a court of proper jurisdiction against the domain name holder. Those complainants accusing third parties of violation of their trademarks on domain names usually file complaints based on international or domestic intellectual property laws, or WIPO arbitration mechanisms. Yet, the ICANN dispute mechanisms are also available for them.