Legal action
So, is the Internet a lawless area where there is no way to protect your intellectual property rights? No, of course there are laws that can help you, as a trademark owner, in situations like the ones described on earlier pages.
WIPO
Because of the enormous growth of the Internet during the last decade, the lack of international legal standards to solve domain name disputes became more and more obvious. There was a need for a faster and easier way to solve domain name disputes. WIPO created a uniform policy that would solve these kinds of disputes in a faster and cheaper way. The UDRP, Uniform Domain Name Resolution Policy, went into effect the 1st of December 1999 after previously being accepted by ICANN, Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names. ICANN is the manager of man of the generic top level domains, such as .com and .net.
UDRP
To solve a domain name dispute, the complainant files a case with one of the service providers, e.g. WIPO. The complainant has to specify the domain name, the current registrar of the domain name, the respondent and also the grounds for the complaint. The most central criteria, when it comes to the grounds of the complaint, is in what way the domain name is identical or similar to the trademark that the complainant owns. It’s also crucial to show why the respondent should not have any rights or legitimate interest in the domain name and to show that it has been registered in bad faith. The respondent gets an opportunity to defend himself against the allegations, and after that the provider appoints a panellist who will decide the outcome of the case.
In general, a domain name case is concluded within two months. The cost for filing a case concerning 1-5 domain names is $1500 using one panellist. The fees are to be paid by the complainant.