WIPO Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Yearly Review 2022

2022 was a record year for WIPO’s alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services. Trademark owners in 2022 filed 5,764 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), eclipsing the previous year by 12.4%. WIPO also saw a 105% increase in its IP ADR caseload, with 548 mediation, arbitration and expedited arbitration cases and good offices requests.

1 IP ADR Caseload 

WIPO IP ADR caseload jumps again in 2022. In total, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center (WIPO Center) received 548 mediation, arbitration, expedited arbitration and good offices requests, with a 105% increase. Particular increases concerned mediation requests in copyright disputes (especially through the co-administration collaboration with the national Copyright Offices of Colombia and Mexico), FRAND-related disputes, and foreign-related IP disputes referred by Chinese courts.

Disputes involved a broad range of IP areas, with copyright (72%), trademarks (12%), and patents (8%) most common. The main business sectors in cases were creative industries, ICT, life sciences, and mechanical processes/equipment.

These WIPO cases involved SMEs, including startups, creators and innovators (46%), collective management organizations (22%), multinationals (16%), and other entities, including universities and R&D centers (16%) with parties coming from all regions, notably Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America. Procedures were conducted in multiple languages, including Chinese, English, French, Korean, and Spanish.

In most cases parties used WIPO Online Case Administration Tools, including the WIPO Center's eADR online case management platform and videoconferencing systems. The necessary use of online tools occasioned by pandemic restrictions in 2020 and 2021 continued through 2022 at the convenience of the parties.

2  Domain Name Dispute Resolution 

WIPO domain name dispute resolution record filing. In 2022, trademark owners filed a record 5,764 cases with the WIPO Center under the WIPO-initiated Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), eclipsing the previous year by 12.4%. This rise made for a 56% aggregate increase since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, signaling a continued shift to online activity and the corresponding need for online vigilance. The strong demand pushed WIPO cybersquatting cases to a total of over 61,000; the number of domain names covered since the start of this WIPO service surpassed the 110,000 mark.

The strong growth can be largely attributed to the greater number of people spending more time online since the COVID-19 pandemic, with trademark owners reinforcing their online presence to offer authentic content and trusted sales outlets to Internet users. Representing 75% of WIPO's generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) caseload, .COM demonstrated its continuing relevance.

WIPO UDRP cases in 2022 involved parties from 132 countries. The US, with 2,051 cases filed, France (1,207), the UK (459), Switzerland (314), and Germany (257) were the top five filing countries.

The WIPO Center's dispute resolution services for country code Top-Level Domains (ccTLDs) continued to grow, with the addition of .SN (Senegal) in 2022. The WIPO Center now provides dispute resolution services to over 80 ccTLDs.

In 2022, the WIPO Center established new collaborations with IP and Copyright Offices and Courts of more than ten Member States, including the Fujian High People's Court of China, to promote and help introduce ADR options for IP and technology disputes. The WIPO Center now collaborates with over 70 such national entities.