A decision was taken by the WIPO Member States at their meeting from September 24 to October 3, 2001 to subject the Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process to a comprehensive analysis by the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications, which met in two Special Sessions for this purpose.
The full text of the decision reads as follows:
"... [T]he General Assembly recognizes the significance of the issues examined in the Second Process Report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process (The Recognition of Rights and the Use of Names in the Internet Domain Name System) (the Second Process Report) and stresses the political importance that it attaches to those issues. It accordingly decides that:
1. "Two special sessions of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) should be held back-to-back with ordinary sessions of the SCT. The two special sessions should be held within a period of time that permits the circulation of a report on them to be transmitted to the Member States in adequate time before the meetings of the Assemblies of WIPO in September 2002;
2. "The two special sessions should be devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the Second Process Report, taking into account the specificities of the issues treated in that Report and dealing with them on their own;
3. "The other work of the SCT dealt with in ordinary sessions of the SCT should not interfere with the consideration by the special sessions of the SCT of the issues in the Second Process Report;
4. "A Report of the two special sessions of the SCT should be prepared which presents the options for the treatment of the issues dealt with in the Second Process Report, indicating whether such issues are ripe for action, require further discussion, are not sufficiently significant in their impact to require any action or are not the subject of consensus. The Report of the two special sessions should be transmitted to the meetings of the WIPO General Assembly in September 2002 for consideration and decision."
Both Special Sessions were held in Geneva; the first from November 29 to December 4, 2001, the second from May 21 to 24, 2002. At their meeting from September 23 to October 1, 2002, WIPO Member States took a decision on the issues addressed in the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process. This decision was based on the recommendations of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications.
All working documents of the Special Sessions are available to the public.