20 january
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has released its annual review, detailing a record-breaking year for its Arbitration and Mediation Center. As the leading provider of domain name dispute resolution services, the WIPO Center handled 6,282 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) and equivalent country-code policies in 2025. This figure surpasses the previous record of 6,192 cases set in 2023.
It is important to note that other service providers, such as the US-based Forum (formerly the National Arbitration Forum), also administer UDRP complaints. When considering the total caseload across all major providers, the overall number of domain disputes saw a marginal decrease in 2025 – from 8,244 to 8,236 cases.
In the cases resolved by WIPO, domain names were transferred to complainants 79% of the time. Complaints were denied in 5% of cases, while 15% were terminated by mutual agreement prior to a decision. The remaining 1% were dismissed on procedural grounds.
The vast majority of cases – 5,713 – concerned the generic top-level domain .COM. This was followed by .SHOP (447 cases), .NET (366), and .ORG (333). Among country-code domains, Colombia’s .CO led with 132 cases, followed by Anguilla’s .AI (72 cases) and Australia’s .AU (59 cases).
In terms of industry sectors, information technology was the most active in defending owner interests, filing 11% of all complaints. The banking and finance, entertainment, and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology sectors followed closely, each accounting for 10% of the year’s cases.
