A press release from the Swiss-based WIPO on the number of UDRP cases crossing the 50,000 mark, seems to assert that all of them were related to cybersquatting.
This astounding claim seems to be biased towards IP holders and ignores the thousands of cases where a UDRP’s claims were denied – simply because no cybersquatting was involved.
Says the press release, in part:
The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has registered its 50,000th “cybersquatting” case, a major milestone capping two decades of pro-consumer activity ensuring Internet users can easily find genuine sites for the brands they love and trust.
Now, 20 years later, as of November 20, 2020, WIPO had administered 50,000 UDRP-based proceedings covering almost 91,000 domain names, and involving parties from over 180 countries.
These numbers are grossly inaccurate, of course. Numerous UDRP filings end up being terminated, or have their claims denied.
Just how many of these 50,000 UDRP filings were not “cybersquatting” and were denied?
According to DNDisputes.com, more than 14,000 UDRP cases were either terminated or denied. That’s 28% of all cases!
- Transfer: 34,104
- Terminated: 10,167
- Denied: 3,912
- Cancellation: 587
- Others: 1,300
Lastly, some of these decisions ordering domains to be transferred were later overruled in court, reversing the UDRP decision when the rights of the Respondent were misrepresented.
Here’s the image with current UDRP stats from DNDisputes:
