Since I started publishing GigaLaw’s Domain Dispute Digest more than two years ago, I’ve been reporting every quarter about the increase in the number of domain name disputes that trademark owners have been filing – and, overwhelmingly, winning. The same is true today, but this time, in the second quarter 2022 edition of the Digest, something unusual happen:
Download GigaLaw’s Domain Dispute Digest
A significant spike in the number of decisions not only under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) — but also under the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS).
But this is not all good news for trademark owners.
The URS has never really been attractive to trademark owners, in large part because it only allows for the temporary suspension of a disputed domain name, unlike the UDRP, which enables a trademark owner to obtain the transfer of a domain name, which can be a permanent solution to a cybersquatting problem. (Also, and perhaps the most significant limitation of the URS, is that it doesn’t apply to dot-com domain names, so the UDRP is usually the only option for the most problematic cybersquatting situations.)
But suddenly this quarter, something changed:
The number of URS decisions jumped a whopping 80 percent over the same period from a year ago.
And the total number of disputed domain names in those URS cases (since a single case can include multiple domain names) rose an amazing 202.4 percent year-over-year.
The increase in the number of URS cases would seem to indicate that trademark owners have discovered some newfound reason for using it, but a deeper dive into the data, which is included in this issue of GigaLaw’s Domain Dispute Digest, contains a warning about the URS:
Trademark owners won only 69.1 percent of URS cases in the quarter, as compared with a more than 95 percent success rate under the UDRP.
In other words, trademark owners may be turning to the URS more frequently, but they’re much less likely to get the legal relief they want.
As I discuss in a video released with this issue of the Digest, my guess is that some trademark owners are not fully aware of what it takes to win a URS case, which is typically more challenging than winning a UDRP case, given that the URS has very strict filing requirements and a higher burden of proof.
In fact, some notable trademark owners lost URS cases in the quarter, including:
Dyson
Reddit
Warner Brothers
Philip Morris
As for UDRP cases in the quarter, they continued to rise in record numbers, with a 10.4 percent spike in the number of UDRP decisions, with more cases being decided at almost all of the UDRP service providers.
For more details, data, and lists, watch the video or download the Digest.
