CcTLD Best Practices for the Prevention and Resolution of Intellectual Property Disputes

Citation
World Intellectual Property Organization, ccTLD Best Practices for the Prevention and Resolution of Intellectual Property Disputes (Ver. 1) (June 20, 2001) (full-text).

Overview
WIPO was requested by its member Governments to develop a cooperation program for the administrators of ccTLDs to advise them on intellectual property strategy and management for their domains, including dispute prevention and resolution. Following this request, WIPO launched its ccTLD Program covering the following areas:


 * 1. The design of appropriate domain name registration practices aimed at preventing friction between domain names and intellectual property rights;
 * 2. The design of appropriate dispute resolution procedures, to complement traditional court litigation, aimed at resolving domain name disputes expeditiously and at moderate costs; and
 * 3. The provision of dispute resolution services through the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center to any ccTLD administrator who wishes to retain it for that purpose.

Since the launch of the Program, the administrators of many ccTLDs have sought WIPO's advice on the management of intellectual property in their domains and a number of them have retained the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center as a dispute resolution service provider. WIPO now is providing intellectual property advice to the administrators of ccTLDs on an ongoing basis.

WIPO also was asked to establish, for the assistance of the administrators of the ccTLDs, a set of voluntary guidelines for the development of practices and policies to curb abusive and bad faith registrations of protected names, and to resolve related disputes. This document constitutes the final version of the guidelines.