And WIPO continues it's fight against cybersqatting according to a WIPO press release of 26 February 2002 (www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/releases/2002/p303.htm). They do fear, however, that the internationalisation of domain names will also create new opportunities for cybersquatters as it becomes possible to register domain names in non-ASCII characters such as Chinese.

For those interested in this matter, I suggest the WIPO 'ccTLD Best Practices for the Prevention and Resolution of Intellectual Property Disputes', http://ecommerce.wipo.int/domains/cctlds/bestpractices/index.html

On 12:55:15 13 November 2000 jonathan wrote:
>WIPO WIPE OUT
>
>The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has
>recently had a blitz on the 1,300 cybersquatting claims
>received since the launch of its fast-track arbitration
>system in December of last year. More than half of the
>claims have been decided, with 80% of claimants winning
>back the right to their name.
>
>Cybersqautting, as the terms has become known, involves
>the registering of well known business’ and
>enterprises’ names and trademarks as domain names,
>with a view to selling the domain name at a profit. This
>practice exploits the goodwill of owners of the
>trademarks, who in the current Internet world, cannot
>afford not to have their name or trademark as their domain
>name. Cybersquatting first grabbed the headlines with
>famous Marks & Spencers case. The defendants in this
>case had registered the name and mark of Marks &
>Spencers as well as other well known household names such
>as sainsburys.com, ladbrokes.com and virgin.org. The Court
> held that the names were registered in bad faith, with
>the sole purpose of using the goodwill of the Companies
>for profit. The defendants were ordered to transfer the
>domain names to their rightful owner.
>
>Recent decisions by WIPO have seen Chanel, Reuters and
>Helen Fielding (the author of Bridget Jones) all win the
>right to their name.
>
>Jonathan Heaney - solicitor, Fairmays
>
>
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