The National Arbitration Forum considered 18% more disputed domain cases.
The National Arbitration Forum (Forum), an international dispute resolution body, today announced that a total of 2,082 cases were filed under its domain name dispute resolution program in 2011, an 18% increase compared to 2009 (1,759 cases) and a 4% decrease compared to 2010 (2,177 cases). Since the Forum's inaugural arbitration in 1999, nearly 18,000 cases have been filed as of the end of 2011. The Forum is authorized by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to provide domain name dispute resolution services under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).
According to the Arbitration Forum's report for the 2011 domain name dispute resolution program:
- more than 2 thousand disputes (96.2%) related to top-level domain names (gTLDs), including .COM and .ORG, under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP).
- about 70 cases concerned the top-level domain
- three cases were settled under the United States Nexus Dispute Policy (usNDP)
- Ten cases were resolved using the Forum's new Rapid Evaluation Service (RES) methodology for .XXX domain names.
- Experts reviewed and resolved 1,734 of the 2,082 applications received. In the remaining cases, the disputing parties attempted to find a compromise to resolve the issue.
- Resolving cases under the UDRP took an average of 35 days from the date of application. In some cases, it took up to 20 days.
A distinctive feature of the past year was the Forum's implementation of the RES online policy.
The Forum worked with ICM Registry to create a modern online dispute resolution platform. This platform automatically generated a dispute schedule, monitored the case resolution process, coordinated the proceedings, and ensured legal oversight of compliance with time limits. A preliminary decision on the case was issued less than 48 hours after the application was received. However, the RES platform is not yet publicly available, and several issues have been identified, according to a Forum employee.
The Forum's experts, who handle domain disputes, are located worldwide and can conduct cases in several languages, including Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, and Korean. In 2011, the Forum received applications from residents of 25 countries.
