The National Arbitration Forum Blog

Earlier this year the Internet's governing body, ICANN, approved a recommendation that could see a whole range of new Internet addresses. The National Arbitration Forum's Internet Legal Counsel discussed this gTLD expansion and UDRP benefits for the Metropolitan Corporate Counsel October issue on International Law, Trade, and Technology.

Excerpt:

As the recent global technology explosion brings with it new and more complex disputes, often resulting in litigation, one aspect of technology remains decidedly simple: the resolution of domain name disputes under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Devised in 1998 and 1999 as a means for resolving disputes over the registration of domain names that infringed on the established trademark rights of others, the UDRP is not constrained by jurisdictional requirements or national substantive law. The UDRP (or a similar policy) is a part of the registration agreement for all generic top-level domains (gTLD)*.

*A top-level domain is the portion of a domain name that occurs after the final period, such as ".com". Generic top-level domains allow anyone to register a domain name within the space (like ".com"); by contrast, country-code top-level domains are uniquely controlled by each country and restricted top-level domains require that registrants meet certain criteria.

Read more of Changes To The Internet Space: Is Your Client Ready? by Kristine Dorrain.

See Also:

• The Final Frontier: ICANN’s gTLD Expansion May Provide New Opportunities