DSTI/ICCP/TISP(2004)2/FINAL 

One further consideration is worth noting. One of the primary concerns of business users of domain 

names is to protect their customers from fraudulent use of names associated with their business. In some 

instances business users may have already reached the point where they will not contest all names 

containing their trademark as part of a string. Placing a well known brand name, as a key word, into a 

 Whois?  search engine will commonly result in more than several thousand registrations.

37

 In many cases 

firms will only seek to take action against registrants creating Websites that are misleading or fraudulent or 

using e mail in the same manner. This appears to be evident from the number of cases brought before the 

Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) system established by WIPO, which have been 

decreasing (

Table 17

). Notably this has occurred at a time of expansion in the number of gTLDs. Some 

attribute this decrease to sunrise periods or other measures adopted by new gTLDs.

38

It is worth noting that in 2003 the number of challenges involving names under 

.biz

 and 

.info 

halved 

from the previous year. In the first half of 2004 there appears to have been a significant further reduction. 

Indeed, there were only three UDRP challenges for 

.biz 

from the beginning of 2004 until 7 June 2004 

(Table 18). One notable difference between

 info

 and 

.biz 

is that the latter is intended for business and 

commercial users whereas 

.info

 is open to all registrants. As a result of this policy there is additional 

challenge procedure available for registrations under 

.biz

. The  Restrictions Dispute Resolution Policy  

(RDRP) for .

biz 

is exclusive to that gTLD. The RDRP is used to resolve disputes between domain name 

registrants and third parties asserting that the disputed domain name has been registered in violation of 

the 

.biz

 registration restrictions. Registrations under 

.biz

 must be used or intended to be used primarily for 

bona fide business or commercial purposes.

39

Overall the question of whether a tipping point may one day be reached, in terms of firms not 

engaging in defensive registrations, is an open one. The data do indicate a trend toward less challenges 

under UDRP processes even at the time of the introduction of new gTLDs. That being said, if users stop 

challenging infringement of their trademark, a court might see this as being passive in defending that 

trademark and as a consequence, count that against the company for any particular case in the future. On 

the other hand, the court would most likely also consider the reasonableness of defending all potential 

cases if the number of gTLDs is expanded. 

Table 17.  Number of cases involving gTLDs brought before the UDRP Process 

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 

gTLD UDRP Cases 

1 

1 841 

1 506 

1 181 

1 053 

Source

: WIPO.

40

Table 18.  Number of domain names challenged, involving individual gTLD names, before the URDP Process 

 .com 

.net 

.org 

.info 

.biz 

Total 

Number of names 

1466 235 

123 115 

74 

2013 

(2002) 

Percent of Total 

72.83% 

11.67% 

6.11% 

5.71% 

3.68% 

Number of Names 

1378 177 84  50 

33 

1722 

( 2003) 

Percent of Total 

80.02% 

10.28% 

4.88% 

2.90% 

1.92% 

Number of Names 

673 54 

33 18 

9 

788 

(January June 7th 

2004) 

Percent of Total 

85.53% 

6.85% 

4.91% 

2.28% 

1.14% 

Note

: Some cases involve more than one gTLD in the same case or multiple names under the same gTLD. In other words some 

cases involve more than one domain name. The data shown here are by the number of names rather than the number of cases as in 

Table 17. 

Source

: OECD, based on WIPO. 

 35