In June last year we proudly announced that Waterfront partner Matthew Harris had been named one of WIPO’s  “Legal Rights Objection Experts”.

These experts were tasked with deciding disputes between applicants for new “generic Top Level Domains”.  Some predicted that few would use the LRO process, but approximately 70 cases were filed.  Matthew sat on a number of panels appointed to decide such disputes.  These included the controversial <.wiebo> and <.微博> Chinese micro-blogging cases.

In the last few days WIPO has released its list of “Trademark Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Experts”.  The TPDDR is intended to be a higher-level rights protection mechanism aimed at situations where a registry’s operation or use of a domain leads to or supports trade mark infringement.  Matthew has been named as one of only 7 UK based lawyers on this panel.

Further details of the TPDDR process can be found on the WIPO website.