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Special WIPO Session of SCT Looks at Waysto Prevent Cybersquatting

Geneva, December 7, 2001
Press Updates UPD/2001/152

At a special session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications, member states discussed whether currently existing procedures to protect trademarks against abusive domain name registrations should be expanded in the future to cover other types of identifiers, such as the names of intergovernmental organizations, the names of persons, international non-proprietary names of pharmaceutical substances, geographical indications, country names and trade names. The committee met in a special session in Geneva from November 29 to December 4, 2001 and was attended by 69 member states, the European Community, four intergovernmental organizations and 10 non-governmental organizations.

The discussions were based on the report of the Second WIPO Internet Domain Name Process which noted that, while there is clear evidence of abuse of the identifiers in question in the domain name system, the international legal framework is not sufficiently well developed for introducing new protective measures for all the identifiers concerned. In September 2001 the WIPO member states decided that the report required additional study and convened two special sessions of the Standing Committee to that end. The second special session is scheduled for May 2002. The committee will make recommendations that member states will consider at the next WIPO General Assembly in September 2002.

At its first session, the committee focused mainly on determining, from among all identifiers covered by the report, which warranted protection at this stage in the domain name system. With regard to international non-proprietary names of pharmaceutical substances and personal names, the committee decided that no immediate action was necessary. The committee requested the WIPO secretariat to prepare, for its consideration at the next session, proposals on possible means for protecting the names and acronyms of international intergovernmental organizations, as well as the names of countries. On the question of geographical indications and trade names, it was decided that further discussions were necessary. Talks in May 2002 are expected to look at the nature of the measures to be put in place to resolve problems encountered in relation to those identifiers.

WIPO's first Internet Domain Name Process, focusing on protection of trademarks, led to the current Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which, since December 1999, has provided the means for solving thousands of conflicts relating to cybersquatting on the Internet. The report of the first WIPO process noted that certain issues relating to intellectual property still remained unresolved, insofar as they relate to the use of other identifiers in the domain name system.

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