Arbitration Center (international court) of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva will consider a complaint of the Russian manufacturer of navigation systems «Navitel». The firm claims domain names NAVITEL.MOSCOW and НАВИТЕЛ.МОСКВА, registered by some Russian cybersquatter in December 2014.
Russian lawyer Anton Sergo represents interest of the company. He is a co-author of the recently published book «Domain disputes». As Sergo explained, the decision to apply to the international court bypassing the Russian judicial authorities was driven by a desire to solve the problem quickly and competently.
WIPO Arbitration Center will consider the complaint under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution (UDRP) policy that has been extremely successfully applied and for a long time now to resolve issues concerning all gTLDs and some ccTLDs. New domain zones created in 2014 (including .МОСКВА and .MOSCOW), also fall under its jurisdiction.
The head of legal department at the Coordination Center for TLD RU/РФ Sergei Kopylov believes that difficulties may arise when the decision of the WIPO Arbitration Center is to implemented in Russia, in case the decision will violate Russian law. «It is possible that if foreign arbitration commission decides to transfer the domain to the rights holder, the former owner might be able to get the domain back in the national court and even lay damages at the registrar for the «illegal actions».
