Fees for 3 panel WIPO Going up

[adoptabledomains]

Anyone filing a WIPO claim who wants a 3 member panel, will be paying more as of 12/1/02 ($4000). single panelist remains the same at $1500.

Here is the story:
http://arbiter.wipo.int/domains/fees/index.html

 

[StockDoctor]

Good news!

 

[jberryhill]

Ummm.. that's BAD news. The Respondent win rate for three member panels is dramatically higher than for single member panels. If a UDRP is filed against you, you WANT a three member panel.

That said, when the Respondent requests a three-member panel, then the Respondent pays half of the total fee (i.e. going up to $2,000). Complainants who request three-member panels, and pay the entire fee, are idiots.

 

[TrafficMonsterRRR]

If you analyze the news, this is yet another blow to the respondent lot. It is possible that more domain names may be given away (a "favorable" 3 member panel more expensive, thus avoided more often) or lost in 1 member panel WIPO.

I wish they would raise the basic 1-member panel fee.

 

[HOWARD]

It seems to me that they did this because the trend of 3-member panels has been favorable to the respondent and they wanted to penalize the Respondents who are smart enough to request 3 member panels.

 

[adoptabledomains]

Past trends aside, the complaintant who want to hedge the bet that they don't get the one person who would decide against them has a higher cost of intitial filing.

On the up side for the respondent, it may now be worth as much as $4000 to settle before filing, if for nothing else but to save time and case preparation costs on behalf of the complaintant.

On the down side for a respondent, being reverse hijacked, you now have a higher cost to get a 3 panel as previously mentioned.

I think good or bad can go either way depending on the stength of the case.

 

[Oceanic]

Originally posted by adoptabledomains
..On the up side for the respondent, it may now be worth as much as $4000 to settle before filing, if for nothing else but to save time and case preparation costs on behalf of the complaintant...
.

Why would a complainant ask for a 3member panel of most of these decisions are unfavorable to them?

 

[StockDoctor]

Originally posted by jberryhill
Ummm.. that's BAD news. The Respondent win rate for three member panels is dramatically higher than for single member panels. If a UDRP is filed against you, you WANT a three member panel.

That said, when the Respondent requests a three-member panel, then the Respondent pays half of the total fee (i.e. going up to $2,000). Complainants who request three-member panels, and pay the entire fee, are idiots.

Partially agree with you from that perspective, and partially disagree from another perspective.

I'm aware of the statistics showing an advantage to the respondent using a 3 member panel, but at least in my review of cases, if your position / defense is solid, you can win on a 1 member panel without too much trouble, and without any cost other than your time. I have. If that's true, the increase of cost to the complainant with a threat to go to a 3 member panel not only increases the chances of the complainants loss of the decision, but also increases their cost to challenge, hence an increase of the market value of the domain.

Also. when I say good news, it's coming from my belief that cybersquatters SHOULD have to pay more to defend against complainants if trying to defend a domain they shouldn't have in the first place, and are merely taking a shot at finding some offbeat panelist to go their way. This policy change can force those cybersquatters to pay a higher price to defend a bogus claim. I'm all for that.

Cybersquatters are a detriment to domain speculators and a weakness in our armor. There is nothing wrong with domain speculation (with planned development), but there is everything wrong with cybersquatting and false sunrise filings etc. I want the costs to successfully defend such actions to go to the moon.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by stocdoctor
Cybersquatters are a detriment to domain speculators and a weakness in our armor. There is nothing wrong with domain speculation (with planned development), but there is everything wrong with cybersquatting and false sunrise filings etc. I want the costs to successfully defend such actions to go to the moon.

Where do you draw the line, doc? Was Nissan.com a cybersquatter?

 

[StockDoctor]

Originally posted by mole


Where do you draw the line, doc? Was Nissan.com a cybersquatter?

Not in my opinion. I'm not saying that there aren't stupid decisions. There are dumb respondents, panelists, attorneys.

I don't agree with the statistics on the 3 member panels and the basis for paying the higher fees to defend against a complainant.
Those cases reflect decisions where the respondents actually were willing to put more effort and cash behind their defense.

I feel the same effort made in a 1 member panel would reflect a similar success rate. I'm not against attorneys, I'm just commenting on the costs and the statistics.

I would like to see the costs go up for anyone who tries to game the system, be they complainants or respondents.

 

[HOWARD]

The flaw in your reasoning is that under the new fee structure, if a Complainant gets a one-person panel and the Respondent wants a 3-person panel, it only costs the complainant an additional $500 while the Respondent must fork up $2,000 to defend the domain. I think that this will result in a lot more filings by Complainants and a lot more defaults by Respondents who cannot come up with the additional funds. The ultimate beneficiary is WIPO because they have effectively increased their business and income.

 

[StockDoctor]

Originally posted by HOWARD
The flaw in your reasoning is that under the new fee structure, if a Complainant gets a one-person panel and the Respondent wants a 3-person panel, it only costs the complainant an additional $500 while the Respondent must fork up $2,000 to defend the domain. I think that this will result in a lot more filings by Complainants and a lot more defaults by Respondents who cannot come up with the additional funds. The ultimate beneficiary is WIPO because they have effectively increased their business and income.

I was trying to remember (without going thru my files) the split cost that was paid by the respondent selecting a 3 member panel before the rule change. If memory serves me correctly, a respondent previously requesting the 3 member panel still had to fork up $1000 to $1500, so the change is not that significant.

Also, it has been said that a complainant does not want the 3 member panel anyway, so the minimal cost increase to the complainant is a moot point.

Overall, I still disagree with the statistics on the importance of a 3 member panel to the respondent. They are skewed due to the extra effort and cost put out by the respondent on those cases, while the 1 member panel statistics reflect a ton of Non-responses by the respondents.

Again, with some elbow grease I think that a respondent has as great a chance of success with a 1 member panel as he does with a 3 member panel, and at 0 cost.

 

[jberryhill]

"I feel the same effort made in a 1 member panel would reflect a similar success rate. "

Since initial publication, Prof. Geist has normalized the stats to reflect the higher single-member panel default rate, and it still comes out that single-member panels transfer more often. Check the update to his Fair.com? paper at udrpinfo.com.

Part of the reason has to do with the fact that single-member panels are chosen solely by the UDRP provider, and some of the worst panelists happen to be among the most frequently selected. Put yourself in the dispute resolution provider's position... who are YOU going to want to appoint more often to decide single-member panel disputes? Keep in mind that WIPO and NAF are competing with each other to attract more complaints.

There are quite a few issues which are completely panelist-dependent. For example, there are panelists who simply have irreconcilable views on the subject of nominative use in connection with goods actually sold at a website. If you take a look at, say, the decision in mercedesshop.com, there are panelists that agree with the decision, and there are panelists that agree with the dissent. In a similar factual situation, you would not want to leave the result up to "luck of the draw".

 

[StockDoctor]

Great stuff there John, and thanks for bringing it to the forum.

That said, I'm one who has read the studies by Prof. Geist and have some personal experience dealing with 7 challenges of my own to date. With research to back me up, only 1 case (against Metro A.G) of mine has actually gone to arbitration. The rest of the crowd (including the NYSE) has backed down, and I beat Metro. This on my own by the way.

This is not meant to toot my own horn, but to show that even a back-woods guy from NH can stand up and win when he's right.

Even though the Professor has updated his 1 member panel statistics to reflect the majority level of defaults on the part of the respondents, I still believe that those numbers unfaily indicate a much better respondent chance via a 3 member panel.

I agree that the arbitration services are biased in their selections of panelists and the studies by the good Professor reflect this, but the BIG difference is in the pudding. A large number of decisions made by the 1 member panels has been decided correctly I feel. Sadly, a great number of registrations by respondents are made by people who either do not understand the rules or reg a name in blantant disregard for same. Then, when they are challenged, they do not respond (in the majority), or respond with some flimsy excuse. I don't feel sorry for them at all. Additionally, a large number of respondents who actually have followed the rules and have a legitimate right to their name, do not put up a fight, let alone pay money to get a 3 member panel.

Those that select a 3 member panel obviously more clearly reflect those with legitimate claims and put in the effort and capital to defend their turf. Hence the statistics.

Bottom line, when you're right, you're right, and right makes might. Doc

 

[jberryhill]

"A large number of decisions made by the 1 member panels has been decided correctly I feel. Sadly, a great number of registrations by respondents are made by people who either do not understand the rules or reg a name in blantant disregard for same."

I agree with that... and that's what the Policy is for. It was designed for "no-brainer" disputes, and most of them are no-brainers. But some panelists have been unable to restrain their creative impulses.

A lot of folks quote the 80% figure as if it were proof of bias. Most attorneys don't waste their time pursuing frivolous cases, and if they were doing their job right, you would expect something closer to a 100% complainant win rate. You are absolutely correct that the raw numbers do not reflect the differences in relative merit among cases.

However, every attorney here can tell you that the "right" side does not always win. Hence, anything you can do to push things your way is worth doing.

What is interesting is to go through the decisions, and using your own subjective "no-brainer" filter, determine the frequency of "bad" single-member panel contested cases versus the "bad" three-member panel contested cases.

There have been quite a few cases, such as barcelona.com and campers.us, which I believe would have come out differently if a three-member panel had been selected appropriately.

 

[pljones]

John, I couldn't agree more with your last post.

I would like to know why it costs only $2500 for a three member panel with NAF for one domain name ($3500 for up to 10 names) and $4000 to $5000 with WIPO. Unlike Howard, I do not think this rise in costs is to automatically cause difficulties for respondents, but I do think that it will have the effect of discouraging respondents with good claims from going with a three-member panel.

 

[dkny]

Originally posted by jberryhill
Since initial publication, Prof. Geist has normalized the stats to reflect the higher single-member panel default rate, and it still comes out that single-member panels transfer more often. Check the update to his Fair.com? paper at udrpinfo.com.

Did he take this into account, cybersquatters who realize that they will loose the case did not request for 3 member panels?

Because this is the big factor that make single-member panel has higher transfer rate.

 

[jberryhill]

"Did he take this into account, cybersquatters who realize that they will loose the case did not request for 3 member panels?"

Ah, yes, but you can count the cases where the *complainant* requested a three member panel and where the respondent filed a response, and you still get a significantly different outcome than for contested (i.e. non-default) single-member panel cases.

In response to pljones' question above, you have to take into account that NAF takes in additional revenue over the course of a dispute by charging for "supplemental" filings. Complainants just can't seem to resist wanting to file more stuff when a response is filed.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but before the NAF stopped charging respondents for filing rebuttals to supplemental filings, I believe the NAF complaint fee was $1,250, and WIPO's was $1500. But if the Complainant and the Respondent filed supplemental materials, then the NAF would take in $1,750 after the shooting was done.

WIPO accepts supplemental stuff for free, and informs the panel, but doesn't pass it along to the panel unless the panel requests it.

Differences between NAF's and WIPO's approach to the question of "supplemental" filings is described here:

http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/nc-udrp/Arc00/msg00366.html

 

[HOWARD]

NAF's procedure is highly prejudicial against the Respondent. The Parties have 7 days from the last filing (Response) in which to file Supplemental materials. If the Complainant waits till the 7th day to file, the Respondent is shut out from responding to the Supplemental Materials because the 7 days has run. Further, the Supplemental materials are not supposed to raise new issues, but simply to respond to the Respondent. Complainants however, cannot restrain themselves from delving into issues that weren't previously raised by the pleadings, and these materials are accepted while the Respondent has no opportunity to answer these new issues.

 

[pljones]

Howard, I don't think that is correct. Respondents have additional time to answer if a complainant waits until the last day to file a response. Also, this can be resolved simply by calling the case coordinator. I know it works that way at the NAF. Their procedure allows respondents an opportunity to reply.

But it all goes back to the discretion of the panel on whether the material should be let in. Complainants can over reach, I agree, but good counsel will limit their replies to new arguments raised by the response. Panels should be able to toss out additional materials that simply rehash what was already said in the Complaint.

For more on supplemental filings, see: http://www.udrplaw.net/Supplemental.htm