Public Comment

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Name: Richard Hill
Date: 14 Apr 2022
Affiliation: Hill & Associates
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I have been a UDRP panelist since the inception of the scheme in 2000, am a panelist for NAF and WIPO, and was a panelist for eResolution. I am also a panelist for ADR.EU. I have been a panelist in over UDRP 800 cases and am currently handling over 100 cases/year, mostly default cases where there is obvious abuse, e.g. illegal activity such as fraud and/or phishing. At the beginning of the UDRP, my findings were roughly 50% in favor of Complainant, whereas now they are almost always in favor of Complainant, but this is because I am now mostly handling very obvious default cases (no response).

It seems to me that section 4 of the Status Report would be more useful if it broke down the outcome by whether or not there was a Response. That is, show the Complainant win percentages (page 55) separately for default cases versus cases in which there was a Response. I say this because practically all the default cases that I am seeing now are clear cases of abuse.

In reply to the specific questions, in my experience:

1. The UDRP does provide trademark holders with a quick and cost-effective mechanism for resolving domain name disputes.

2. The UDRP does allow all relevant rights and interests of the parties to be considered and ensure procedural fairness for all concerned parties.

3. It appears to me that the number of clearly abusive registrations may have increased. While the UDRP does effectively address abusive registrations of domain names, if the number of abusive registrations has increased, then perhaps there should be a study of the economic factors that may have been contributing to such an increase.