Management of Internet Domain Names Intellectual Property Considerations

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Management of Internet Domain Names -
Intellectual Property Considerations
APT-ITU Joint Workshops on ENUM and IDN Bangkok-
August 25-26, 2003

• Eun-Joo Min, Senior Legal Officer
• WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center

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Trademarks v. Domain Names

• Trademark System
• publicly administered
• territorial legal rights
• examination, review process
• different jurisdiction, classes
• Domain Name System
• largely privately administered
• technical address, resulting in global presence
• first come, first served (no examination, review)
  
• unique

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WIPO Domain Name Process I

• endorsed by WIPO member states (Sept. 1998)
• Commenced in July 1998 to make recommendations on
  questions arising out of the interface between
  domain names and intellectual property rights
• Final report published in April 1999

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First WIPO Internet Domain Name Process TM-DN
Recommendations
Conflict Trademark - Domain Name
Administrative Procedure
options
Courts
A procedure permitting trademark owners to
resolve clear cases of abusive domain
name registration (cybersquatting) without going
to court.
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Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy
(UDRP)

• Approved by ICANN in October 1999
• Administrative procedure
• Limited to abusive registrations
• Mandatory submission by domain name registrants
• Remedies
• Transfer or Cancellation only
• No monetary damages

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UDRP Panel Decision Criteria

• Conditions for obtaining remedies
• 1. Trademark must be identical or confusingly
  similar to domain name and
• 2. Registrant has no rights or legitimate
  interests in domain name and
• 3. Domain name is registered and used in bad
  faith.
• Examples of rights or legitimate interests
• Registrant commonly known by the domain name
• Use for bona fide offering of goods or services
• Examples of bad faith
• registration for purpose of profit sale to
  trademark owner
• pattern of preventing trademark owners from
  registration

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WIPO UDRP Experience

• Received cases (July 1, 03) 5,162 (leading
  provider)
• 9,125 domain names (33 multilingual cases)
• famous marks, small and medium enterprises,
  individuals
• parties from 111 countries
• Resolved cases 4,826 (95,6)
• WIPO panel decisions 3,885
• transfer rate 81 (1 cancellation)
• party settlement 941 cases
• Completion time per case approximately 2 months
• Communication
• Over 1 million Web site hits per month
• Over 40,000 online case communications per year
• 10 case languages

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Intellectual Property in a Multilingual Context
(1)

• Coke
• ?-? (Japanese Trademark)
• ?-? (Korean Trademark)
• All owned by The Coca-Cola Company
• PURE LIFE
• PURA VITA (Latin American market)
• PURESSA VITAL (Asian market)
• All owned by Nestlé

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Intellectual Property in a Multilingual Context
(2)

• Mark comprising of foreign characters -
  translation and transliteration required
• Doctrine of Foreign Equivalents
• Test of Confusing Similarity
• overall impression
• phonetical, visual comparison
• conceptual equivalency
• relatedness of goods/services
• Schwartzkopf v. black head
• Agua Fresca v. Cool Water
• Buenos Dias (soap) v. Good Morning (shaving
  cream)

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Intellectual Property Issues Raised by IDNs

• Identical or confusingly similar?
• 1. ASAHI asahi.com, ???.com,
• ???.com, risingsun.com, etc
• 2. Mark generic word
• asahibeer.com
• asahisucks.com
• ??asahibeer.com

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UDRP in multilingual context before IDNs

• D2000-1836
• Trademark BØRSEN
• Domain Name borsen.com, boersen.com
• D2001-0535
• Trademark PORCÃO
• Domain Name porcao.com

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WIPO UDRP Cases involving IDNs

• 33 cases filed with WIPO
• 26 cases decided (2 in favor of complainant 1 in
  favor of respondent)
• 7 cases terminated

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Sampling of Disputed Domain Names

• ??.com
• ???.com
• ???.com
• ???????.com
• ??????.com
• ????.com
• ????.com
• schöps.com
• ????.com
• ????.com
• ????.com
• fortunéo.com

• kværner.net
• ?????.com
• ????????.com
• ??.com
• ???.net
• ????.com
• ???????.com
• ???.com
• chériefm.com
• rémycointreau.com
• rémy-cointreau.com
• ???.com

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(No Transcript)
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the domain name is identical or confusingly
similar to a trademark or service mark in which
the complainant has rights(UDRP, Para. 4(a)(i))

• Domain Name
• ??.com
• ????.com
• ????.com
• ???.com
• ????.com
• ?????.com
• fortunéo.com

• Trademark
• ??
• ????
• ????
• ??? tdctrade.com
• ???? (Torinpu) Triumph
• ????? (Raibudoa) livedoor
• FORTUNEO

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(a) the domain name is identical or confusingly
similar to a trademark or service mark in which
the complainant has rights and(b) the domain
name registrant has no rights or legitimate
interests in the domain name and(c) the domain
name was registered and used in bad faith.
(UDRP, Para. 4(a))
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Language of Proceedings (UDRP Rules, Para. 11)

• Language of the registration agreement,
• Unless agreement otherwise between parties,
• Unless specified otherwise in registration
  agreement,
• Subject to Administrative Panels authority to
  determine otherwise

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Language of Proceedings

• ??.com - English
• ???.com- English
• ???.com - English
• ???????.com - English
• ??????.com - English
• ????.Com - Japanese
• ????.com - English
• schöps.com - English
• ????.com - Japanese
• ????.com - English
• ????.com - English
• fortunéo.com - English

• kværner.net - English
• ?????.com - English
• ????????.com - English
• ??.com - Chinese
• ???.net - Japanese
• ????.com - English
• ???????.com - Korean
• ???.com - Chinese
• chériefm.com - English
• rémycointreau.com - English
• rémy-cointreau.com - English
• ???.com - English

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(No Transcript)
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Panelists

• Multilingual
• Expert in the use of non-ASCII characters
• Familiar with local laws

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Domain Name Language of
Nationality of Proceedings
Panel

• ??.com English Korean
• ???.com English Chinese
• ????.com Japanese Japanese
• ????.com English Chinese
• schöps.com English German
• ????.com Japanese Japanese
• ????.com English Chinese
• ????.com English British (Pres.) Chinese,
  Singaporean
• fortunéo.com English Canadian
• kværner.net English Swede

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WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center as Dispute
Resolution Service Provider

• Parties from 114 countries
• 337 panelists from 46 different countries
• UDRP proceedings currently administered in 10
  different languages
• (Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese,
  Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish)
• Web site in six languages
• (English, French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese,
  Spanish)
• Case managers from 20 countries

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Second WIPO Domain Name Process
(http//wipo2.wipo.int/process2)

• Personal names
• International Nonproprietary Names (INNs)
• Names of international intergovernmental
  organizations
• Geographical indications, geographical terms
  (country names)
• trade names

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Up-to-date Information

• Domain Name Dispute Resolution Service
• http//arbiter.wipo.int/domains/
• List of UDRP Decisions
• http//arbiter.wipo.int/domains/decisions/
• E-mail eunjoo.min_at_wipo.int