Late November, an online meeting of the legal framework committee of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ was held. Participants in the meeting discussed most pressing issues related to formation of practice for domain dispute resolution, interaction with domain name registrants and the legal community, as well as the implementation of UDRP decisions, and other issues.
In particular, meeting participants discussed the viability of the application of the policy On the Procedures Applicable to Domain Name Disputes to objects directly mentioned in the Civil Code (such as trade names, geographical indications, etc.), not only to trademarks. This issue will be discussed later, in the first quarter of 2021, during a roundtable meeting with the participation of copyright holders and registrars.
Another issue on the agenda was the development of a procedure for ‘holding back’ a domain after it has been transferred to the copyright holder by a court ruling in order to be able to return the domain if the judgement is revoked. As of today, it should be noted, there have been precedents when after the copyright holder’s claim was satisfied by the court of original or appellate jurisdiction, the domain was given to the claimant. But if such a decision is then revoked by the Supreme Court, the domain cannot be returned to the previous registrant. The meeting participants noted the need to develop a procedure for not releasing the domain until the final court decision has been reached. First of all, the technical implementation of this procedure is important. They suggested including this issue in the agenda of the open roundtable meeting slated for the first quarter of 2021.
Participants in the meeting also spoke about issues involving interaction with domain name registrants, including courses of action when the domain registrant is a now non-existent legal entity of an individual. The specially created working group is currently working out a solution. The meeting participants discussed the need to create a united position and practices related to domain name registrars’ provision/non-provision of information about registrants by attorney request. According to current legislation, attorneys are not included in the list of people who can demand personal data of a domain name registrant without the latter’s consent. The rules of registering domain names in .RU and .РФ also do not force the registrar to reveal personal information about registrants to lawyers. One solution would be to create a united policy of provision or non-provision of data from the domain name register while simultaneously initiating a process to change the law on this legal practice (including granting attorneys the right to receive personal data for the purposes of judicial proceedings).
Experts also discussed the need to determine the legal status of implementing UDRP decisions by Russian registrars, without being at risk of losing accreditation and facing claims from domain name registrants. Russian registrars are actively working and registering domain names in international domain zones subject to the UDRP. There is a risk that a foreign rights holder, based on a decision by an arbitration center (such as WIPO), could take a domain name from a client who, in turn, has an agreement regulated by the entity’s national law, not the UDRP. The registrar then will face the following choice: either to comply with this decision as a part of a policy that does not have jurisdiction in the given country and then face subsequent court complaints according to local laws, or fail to implement the decision in favor of copyright holder with the same consequences.
Participants in the meeting noted that this problem should be discussed with the participation of registrars who are accredited in international domains, with the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ becoming a possible initiator of this discussion. In addition, it would be worthwhile to discuss the issue at international platforms, taking into account existing cases with other registries (those who did not adhere to the UDRP procedure) and involving representatives of WIPO, the Federal Service for Intellectual Property (Rospatent) and other interested parties.
