WIPO Cybersquatting Case Filing Surges During COVID-19 Crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have fueled an increase in cybercrime. This is also true for cybersquatting (the practice of registering names, especially well-known company or brand names belonging to someone else, as Internet domains, in the hope of reselling them at a profit or illegal use) cases filed with WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center, notably in the biotech/pharma, Internet/IT, banking/finance, and events-related categories.

As part of its overall response to the COVID-19 crisis, WIPO has continued to provide its full domain name dispute resolution services.

As a time-tested tool for reclaiming infringing domain names from bad actors and returning them to their legal owners, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) established in 1999 has served trademark owners in nearly 48,000 WIPO cases already.

The UDRP operates globally, and online, which means that cases are far more efficient and less expensive than court litigation around the world.

More detailed information about UDRP can be found on WIPO web-site.

A range of real-time statistics for WIPO cases can be found.

Based on the WIPO materials.