The UDRP is supposed to be an expedient, less expensive and fair substitute to traditional litigation for cybersquatting cases designed to quickly address clear-cut types of cybersquatting, thereby ensuring a more secure Internet. It is an administrative proceeding that is designed to be a more efficient mechanism have addressing disputes via the courts.
ICANN is looking to assess the effectiveness of the UDRP in terms of the mechanisms overarching goals:
1. Efficiency: Does the UDRP provide trademark holders with a quick and cost-effective mechanism for resolving domain name disputes?
- On average, approximately 900 complaints per year were filed with each UDRP Provider during the observation period (2013 – 2020). 11
- Total cases filed during the observation period ranged from 4,157 cases in 2013 to 6,271 in 2020, with a total of 38,349 complaints involving 67,318 domain names filed with UDRP Providers during the observation period (2013 – 2020).
- Overall trend line for complaints filed with UDRP Providers shows a slight upward trend, with an average growth rate of 6% per year since 2014.
2. Fairness: Does the UDRP allow all relevant rights and interests of the parties to be considered and ensure procedural fairness for all concerned parties?
- Complainants succeeded in obtaining the disputed domain name in about 78% of cases, on average, across all dispute resolution Providers during the observation period (2013 – 2020). 12
- Since 2013, Reverse Domain Name Hijacking (RDNH) cases have been on the rise with 2018 being a record-setting year for abusive filings related to RDNH involving a total of 917 Complainants for the 2013 – 2020 observation period, which is 2% of all UDRP cases.
3. Addressing Abuse: Has the UDRP effectively addressed abusive registrations of domain names?
- From January 2013 to December 2020, over 32,000 UDRP decisions have been rendered by panels. 13 UDRP results for the 2013 – 2020 observation period shows an average annual growth rate of 300 complaints per year across all UDRP Providers and an average annual growth rate of 7% for decisions in favor of Complainants.
About brandsec
Brandsec is a corporate domain name, SSL and brand protection company that look after many of Australia, New Zealand and Asia’s top publicly listed brands. We provide monitoring and enforcement services, DNS, SSL Management, domain name brokerage and dispute management and brand security consultation services.