The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has registered its 50,000th “cybersquatting” case, a major milestone capping two decades of pro-consumer activity ensuring Internet users can easily find genuine sites for the brands they love and trust.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled cybersquatting cases filed with the WIPO Center, adding to the record WIPO filing seen this year. From January through November 2020, the WIPO Center handled 3,794 cases, or a 13% increase over the same period during 2019.

The move to online events in 2020 saw the WIPO Center hold its annual WIPO Mediation and Arbitration Workshop twice, in November and in December. The programs were guided by two faculties of WIPO mediators and arbitrators, industry professionals and WIPO Center lawyers, and timing facilitated participation from some 1,500 attendees around the world.

As part of its overall response to new outreach opportunities this year, the WIPO Center increased its offering of webinars and online training on IP and technology ADR. In 2020, the WIPO Center organized or participated in more than 100 such events – including in Chinese, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish – with over 28,000 registrants from some 180 countries. Available webinar recordings as well as the list of upcoming events can be accessed on the WIPO Center’s website.

The newly published Guide to WIPO Arbitration provides a straightforward introduction to arbitration of IP disputes, based on the experience of the WIPO Center. It describes the main features and advantages of arbitration and explains how arbitration under the WIPO Arbitration and Expedited Arbitration Rules works in practice, with case examples. The aim of the Guide is to prepare IP stakeholders who are considering whether arbitration is the right choice for their dispute resolution needs.

The WIPO Center and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) of the Republic of Korea collaborate to provide mediation services for international copyright- and content-related disputes. To further encourage the use of mediation during COVID-19, WIPO and MCST are offering to part-cover the cost of up to 10 WIPO Mediation procedures until February 28, 2021, for parties involved in international copyright and content-related disputes.