Domain name dispute over Narnia

A family in Edinburgh has been the recipient of a WIPO domain name complaint as a result of their purchase of a Narnia domain name. Richard and Gillian Saville-Smith purchased the domain name narnia.mobi as a gift for their son so that he could use it as his email address. However, C.S. Lewis' estate has filed a complaint using WIPO's domain name dispute resolution mechanism (case D2008-0821).

The value of the domain name is quite evident, as Disney and C.S. Lewis Ltd will certainly be thinking of using it to further promote the popular franchise of Narnia books. Given WIPO's well-documented track record to support the trade mark holder, I am guessing that the result of this dispute could be a foregone conclusion.

This story has internet meme written all over it. Corporate greedy interests, Disney, and unscrupulous estates plot together against hard-working family who want nothing more than to give their son a birthday gift. C.S. Lewis is "rolling in his grave" according to the family. I may surprise some people here, but I have to say that I do not have any sympathy for the parents in this case, even if they are from Edinburgh. Domain name law is clearly moving towards trade mark, and a domain name can be a valuable commodity. If that is the case, what sort of right can this family claim over the domain "narnia.mobi" other than the fact that they registered early? The C.S. Lewis estate holds the trade mark, so it is perfectly valid to assume that they would have a better claim over the domain name than a random family from Scotland.

I would like to own the domain "lordoftherings.com", but it ain't gonna happen, is it?

Domain name disputes hit all time high

Domain name disputes against cybersquatting are at an all-time high according to data collected by WIPO. I must admit that I found this information rather surprising, as it was my understanding that after an initial period of healthy dispute settlements using ICANN's Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), the number of disputes had been falling. According to WIPO's data, the statistics since 2000 are:

Year	Number of Cases
2000	1857
2001	1557
2002	1207
2003	1100
2004	1176
2005	1456
2006	1824
2007	2156

There's certainly a resurgence in the last three years. But why? WIPO is very efficient, and allows wider dissemination of the UDRP and its policies. WIPO's role as a dispute settlement provider assures that the UDRP will remain as one of the most successful examples of online dispute resolution in the world. However, the UDRP has often been accused of being pro-trade mark owner. For example, looking at WIPO's dispute outcome statistics per year, out of 11958 disputes, 65% have resulted in a favourable outcome for the complainant. If we consider that 22% of the disputes are dropped, only 11% complaints are dismissed. Granted, most of the defendants are cybersquatters, but one has to wonder about whether such a seemingly one-sided system can be sustained much longer. After all, losers can still initiate a dispute in their national courts.