As the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) noted in a recent webinar, a subsidy has reduced the starting filing fee for .eu domain name disputes to as little as 100 euros (about US $112). This represents a tremendous reduction from the standard filing fee of 1,300 euros (almost US $1,500). This was just one of several important notes about the .eu dispute policy from the WIPO webinar.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) updated its status for delivering domain name dispute services in light of the coronavirus pandemic, announcing: “As part of its overall response to this global crisis, WIPO remains committed to providing its full domain name dispute resolution services.”

Current events sometimes dictate what cybersquatting problems a trademark owner chooses to tackle, and the coronavirus pandemic is certainly no exception. In two decisions under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), panels awarded transfers of domain names that contain the “Purell” trademark to the owner of the popular (and suddenly scarce) hand sanitizer.

The co-founder of Fibit disclosed in an interview that he bought the <fitbit.com> domain name for only $2,000 in 2003, a surprisingly low price for a company that recently announced it was being acquired by Google in a deal that valued the company at about $2.1 billion.

The first issue of GigaLaw’s Domain Dispute Digest— a 7-page quarterly report that tracks data and trends from the major providers of ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) — is now available to download. The inaugural issue, launched during the global coronavirus pandemic, includes detailed data from the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Forum, the two most active UDRP providers, which together historically account for about 95 percent of all disputes.

The first decision under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) involving a domain name that contains the word “coronavirus,” filed by Google, not surprisingly resulted in an order transferring the domain name to Google — but not for the typical reasons.

While the coronavirus has adversely impacted countless people and businesses worldwide, it has done nothing — at least, not yet — to slow down trademark owners from pursuing cybersquatters, according to early data from one of the leading service providers under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).

Already, plenty of news reports have been warning about hackers and other online threats prompted by the coronavirus. And now, at least two apparent cybersquatters have tried to capitalize on the global pandemic by registering domain names that contain the word “coronavirus”: <coronavirusgoogle.com> and <googlecoronavirus.com>.

While it may be too early to know how the domain name system will respond to the coronavirus in the long-term, it is reassuring to know that the UDRP providers appear to be operating as normally as possible under the circumstances.

In a decision that seems surprising at first glance, Warner Bros. lost a UDRP case for the domain name <dumbledore.com>. “Dumbledore” is the name of a popular Harry Potter character, and Warner Bros. is a sophisticated trademark owner, but the UDRP panelist found that the registrant of the domain name had rights or legitimate interests in <dumbledore.com> and that it did not register or use the domain name in bad faith. The decision was based largely on the fact that the word “dumbledore” has a dictionary meaning.