World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reported that the number of complaints heard under the Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) in 2017 was record high. The WIPO arbitrators reviewed 3074 cases; this is more than ever before. This figure confirms a steady trend: the number of complaints reviewed by WIPO under UDRP has been constantly growing since 2013.
WIPO's 2017 report has a lot of interesting statistics. For example, according to the report, it is Phillip Morris that is the most active defender of its trademark in the domain space – its lawyers filed 91 complaints to WIPO in a year. It is followed by Michelin (56 complaints) and AB Electrolux (51). The biggest number of complaints was received from the United States – 920. Russia was also mentioned in the report: our country showed a record high growth in the number of complaints. In 2017, there number increased by 537.5% at once. However, in absolute terms it corresponds to only 51 complaints per year.
We remind that WIPO is not the only institution that adjudicates domain disputes under UDRP. The Forum in the United States (formerly known as the National Arbitration Forum) has the same functions. However, according to the data provided by the Giga.law resource, the number of heard domain disputes increased significantly as well. In 2017 the Forum made decisions on 1637 domain disputes, which is 13.6% more than previous year.
