[nc-udrp] Top five gripes

["Milton Mueller" <Mueller@syr.edu>]

>>> "John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com> 12/06/02 12:09PM >>>

>But, really, any of us who is not familiar with the literature in this area
>ought to find another hobby.  Based on what we've already read, and our
>experiences, it would be great to hear the "top five gripes" of complainants,
>panelists, providers, registrars, and respondents

Amen. 

Here are mine:

1. Findings of "confusing similarity" that fail to pass the laugh test.
More precisely, the notion that any domain name that incorporates
a mark is confusingly similar to a mark, regardless of how it is used; 
e.g., ICANNWatch.org is confusingly similar to ICANN.org, or 
adtsucks.com is confusingly similar to adt.com.

2. Complainant selection of dispute resolution providers.

3. Failure of many panelists to accept the fact that the UDRP
was intended to be narrowly focused on clearly abusive
registrations and not a global trademark law. 

4. Tendency to collapse all three prongs of the policy 
into one; e.g., a domain name is confusingly similar to a 
trademark therefore respondent "must" have no rights 
or legit interest and bad faith.

5. Supplemental filings. I've been on 20 or so panels and not
one supplemental has added value to the case, unless it was 
requested by the panelists and directed at specific factual issues.