Cases but fewer domains at WIPO in 2018 — More cybersquatting

Filings up but number of domains down at largest UDRP organization.

Graph showing the number of domains subject to cybersquatting complaints at WIPO in 2018

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has issued its annual release regarding how many cybersquatting cases it heard under UDRP and similar policies.

WIPO’s headline states it’s a record, and that’s true when considering the number of cases (3,447). But the number of domains involved (5,665) was only the third highest (see chart).

Another thing to point out is that there will be a lot of false headlines saying that cybersquatting has hit a fresh high. Remember that WIPO is just one of the providers for UDRP. It has tended to win more market share over time.

Also, case filings do not necessarily correlate to the amount of cybersquatting.

I expect UDRP filings to increase in 2019 since of GDPR. Firms that question whether a domain constitutes cybersquatting have difficulty figuring out if the registrant has rights or legitimate interests in the domain since they can’t research the registrant. They might be dissuaded from filing a complaint depending on who the owner is.

Of the 5,665 domains, 5022 were gTLDs and 633 were ccTLDs.

.Com, .Net and .Org were unsurprisingly the top gTLDs. .Nl, .Co and .Se led the way for ccTLDs.

As stated by RDNH.com, there were 28 reverse domain name hijacking findings at WIPO last year.