Delegates from over 150 companies who attended last week's Cyberbeat Intellectual Property seminar in London voted overwhelmingly for Nominet UK to adopt the dispute resolution policy currently used for dot.com domain names. Nominet UK, a not-for-profit company, is the national registry for all domain names ending in .uk. It presently operates its own dispute resolution policy, but it has been unpopular, being perceived as too slow and expensive.
Dot.com domain names are governed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), an organisation based in Los Angeles.
The ICANN rules allow the owner of a trade mark can make an application for a fast ruling in the event that a domain name of that mark has been registered in bad faith by someone with no legitimate interest in the name. A complaint can be made to the panel and, if the panel decides registration was in bad faith, it can order the transfer of the name to the complainant in less than 57 days. Fees should be in the region of $1,000 to $2,500.
The ICANN rules, known as the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), came into effect on 1st January 2000. Since January 2000, over 200 domain names have been transferred as a result of complaints under the rules; as of today, over 400 proceedings are pending.