The U.S. Copyright Office has created a new online directory system for the appointment of agents under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The new system takes effect January 1, 2018, which means that any previous appointments will expire and become invalid at that time.

History, it has been said, repeats itself. The same can be said of domain name disputes, as demonstrated by a pair of cases involving the same trademark ("Panavision") filed more than 20 years apart with remarkably similar facts.

Although including multiple domain names in a single UDRP complaint can be a very efficient way for a trademark owner to combat cybersquatting, doing so is not always appropriate.

It's highly unusual for a well-known trademark owner to be accused of cybersquatting, but that's what happened when a Mexican milk producer filed a complaint against Apple Inc. under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) in an attempt to get the domain name <lala.com>.

WIPO's newest overview of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) succinctly states what decisions have made clear through the years: The UDRP's first test is only a "standing requirement."

Although no ccTLD appears as frequently as .com in domain name disputes, it's interesting to see which ccTLDs are subject to dispute the most often.At the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which hears more domain name disputes than any service provider, the most popular ccTLD that shows up in decisions is .nl (Netherlands), followed by .au (Australia), and .es (Spain).

In a simple, two-page PDF document, I offer a primer on "How to Resolve a Domain Name Dispute." This introduction to the topic describes the problems caused by cybersquatting and the popular legal tools that are available to trademark owners to resolve them.

Not all domain name disputes are appropriate for resolution under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). While the UDRP is clearly the "go-to" legal tool for trademark owners pursuing cybersquatters, some disputes are about larger -- or different -- issues than the UDRP was designed to address.

Here's another apparent limitation of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS), the domain name dispute policy that applies to the new generic top-level domains (gTLDS): Proceedings are unlikely to unmask cybersquatters hiding behind privacy or proxy services.

A popular podcast that launched its new season with a profile on the domain name industry focused on how one well-known opportunist, Rick Schwartz, made riches by registering, using and selling domain names -- starting in 1995 -- that consisted of or contained generic words such as porno.com, candy.com and servicedepartment.com. But the podcast ignored an important -- and dark -- side of the domain name industry: Cybersquatting.