After an interruption in service due to the war in Ukraine, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is once again accepting complaints under the .ua domain name dispute policy — though there are a few important changes that went into effect as of July 1, 2023.
I discuss these changes in a new video on the GigaLaw YouTube channel.
The Ukrainian domain name dispute policy, which is administered exclusively by WIPO, was only created in 2019, but shortly after Russia’s invasion in February 2022, WIPO issued a statement about possible delays or interruptions to .ua proceedings, and it eventually stopped accepting complaints altogether, which I understand was as a result of a decision by the Ukrainian ccTLD registry operator.
Although trademark owners can again file .ua complaints, there are a few changes to be aware of. They were announced by Hostmaster Limited, which is responsible for the Ukrainian ccTLD, in a document that acknowledged “the need to ensure the continued functioning of mechanisms for the protection of intellectual property rights under the legal regime of martial law.”
Specifically, as I discuss in the video:
A registrar now has an additional 14 days to respond to WIPO’s verification request after a complaint has been filed, in addition to the two-business-day timetable set forth in the rules for .ua disputes, although the registrar still must lock the disputed domain name within that initial two-business-day window.
A registrant can now request — and automatically receive — a 14-day extension of time to submit its response to a complaint, in addition to the 20 days already set forth in the rules.
A domain name registrant that loses a .ua dispute decision now has an additional 14 days to file a lawsuit in the courts of Ukraine to stop the transfer of a domain name, on top of the 10-business-day window already set forth in the rules.
The bottom line, as all of these changes should make clear, is that a .ua domain name dispute could take longer to resolve, because as many as 42 days of additional time might be added to a Ukrainian domain name dispute proceeding.
Finally, the changes to the .ua policy also include an important provision that could significantly alter not only the time period required for a case but whether the dispute can even be resolved at all. The changes now provide that a panel may suspend a proceeding entirely if it concludes that “the Respondent is unable to exercise its right to defense at the time of the administrative proceedings, and if it is objectively impossible to consider the dispute without the Respondent’s participation.” In reaching this conclusion, the registry’s guidance says that a panel should consider the location of the respondent and how the domain name has been used after the introduction of martial law in Ukraine.
All of these changes seem reasonable under the circumstances for a country engaged in a war that’s now almost a year and a half old. And while domain name disputes might seem trivial in the face of a war, there are obviously many individuals and businesses — locally and globally — that rely on legal tools to fight cybersquatters online for their own protection and the protection of their customers, no matter what type of fighting may be occurring in the physical world.
