The Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) has been praised for more than 25 years as the best way for trademark owners to fight cybersquatters – largely because it is faster and less expensive than litigation.
Although a typical case results in a decision about two months after filing, this timeline is still not satisfactory to many trademark owners. That’s because the harm caused by a problematic domain name can continue every day until a dispute is ultimately resolved, usually by a decision ordering transfer of the domain name.
Now, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has announced a significant step to shorten the UDRP process in some cases, without short-circuiting any of the protections available to domain name registrants.
WIPO refers to its solution as “a priority service for expedited case processing.” In short, if a trademark owner is willing to pay a higher filing fee, WIPO says that a case “will be managed by a dedicated team and decided by a special roster of panelists” and that it will “commit to decision delivery in one-month from start to finish in UDRP cases.”
For better and for worse, none of the other timelines required by the UDRP – what WIPO calls “hard-coded time constraints” – will be altered. For example, registrars will still have two business days to lock a disputed domain name after a complaint is filed. Domain name registrants will still have 20 days to submit a response (plus an additional four days upon request). And decisions will still not be implemented until expiration of a 10-business-day waiting period.
I envisioned, and suggested, this exact process when I first became a UDRP panelist more than two decades ago. Although it has taken a very long time, I’m glad to know that this system is now going into effect.
Still, an expedited UDRP process is not a panacea for cyberquatting.
First, WIPO’s priority processing comes with a price – literally. Instead of filing fees that start at $1,500, the price will rise to $4,000 if a trademark owner wants an expedited decision. (Still, given that WIPO has never raised its filing fees since the UDRP went into effect in 1999, this strikes me as reasonable.)
Second, the faster process will not be available for all cases. As WIPO has said, expedited case processing is only an option for single-member panel cases involving no more than five domain names.
Third, and perhaps most importantly, the priority process is far from instantaneous. Shortening the timeline for a decision from about two months to only one month is a significant benefit for trademark owners, but it still allows cybersquatters to use a domain name for what could be a painful period of time.
As a legal representative for trademark owners in many UDRP cases, I welcome WIPO’s decision to offer the a faster option. One of the few complaints my clients ever voice about the UDRP is its speed (even though it is almost always significantly faster than going to court – as well as less complicated, less time-consuming and less expensive).
Shortened domain name disputes are not without precedent. For example, under the Swedish domain name dispute policy for the .se TLD, trademark owners have the option to elect an “accelerated” proceeding for an additional fee. (In 2025, it appears that nearly half of all .se decisions at WIPO were the result of the acceleration process.) And the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS), which was envisioned as a faster and less expensive alternative to the UDRP, requires that decisions be issued “on an expedited basis” of three to five days , instead of the 14-day period provided under the UDRP. (Unfortunately, the URS has never proven popular, largely because it does not apply to the .com TLD and because it does not allow for the transfer of disputed domain names.)
Whether WIPO’s expedited case processing proves popular remains to be seen.
Still, this system may be the most important procedural change ever adopted by a UDRP service provider, finally giving trademark owners an opportunity to seek quicker resolution of domain name disputes without eliminating any of the safeguards for domain name registrants.
