Mr. Chairman:
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the Subcommittee today on behalf of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) to present the views of the Association at this Oversight Hearing on The Internet and Federal Courts: Issues and Obstacles.
The American Intellectual Property Law Association is a 10,000 member, national bar association constituted primarily of lawyers in private and corporate practice, in government service, and in the academic community. The AIPLA represents a wide and diverse spectrum of individuals, companies and institutions involved directly or indirectly in the practice of patent, trademark, copyright and unfair competition law, as well as other fields of law affecting intellectual property. Our members represent both owners and users of intellectual property.
The Internet is an exciting new medium. It has given us a new vocabulary, a new way of communicating, new ways of doing business, and, of course, a new set of legal disputes. Intellectual property disputes, particularly trademark and copyright disputes, were among the first of the new Internet cases. This result should not have surprised us, as one of the key attributes of the Internet is the ability to quickly and easily transmit information. Intellectual property is, at its base, information of one sort or another. The Internet makes it easier to utilize information that belongs to others, and thus, makes infringement of intellectual property rights easier and makes the potential impact of individual infringements much more significant.
With the flood of Internet intellectual property disputes came a number of peripheral controversies. Personal jurisdiction is perhaps the most significant of these controversies. Many Internet intellectual property disputes have involved difficult personal jurisdiction questions. In addition, many disputes have resulted in default judgments that may be difficult to enforce outside the United States. These problems are not really new, but the frequency of such problems in the Internet cases has resulted in a good deal of focus on this issue.
Certain reforms have improved this situation, but problems remain. Some of these problems may be inherent in our legal system. For example, an intellectual property owner will not always be able to enforce its rights in the forum of its choice. That "problem" is largely a matter of perspective, as the same party would likely contest personal jurisdiction in a remote and inconvenient forum.
The AIPLA has been concerned by the substantive and procedural problems posed by the Internet. Our Association has been actively involved in a number of past and ongoing efforts relating to the Internet and intellectual property. We have worked, and continue to work, with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to ensure that intellectual property rights are protected as control of the domain name system and other aspects of the Internet are moved from the Department of Commerce to ICANN. We have also worked with the World Intellectual Property Organization, to further the common interests of intellectual property owners and users throughout the world.
We appreciate the attention given these important issues by Congress and, in particular, by this Subcommittee. We believe oversight hearings such as this one are an important means for interested parties to express their concerns on timely Internet issues. We applaud the Subcommittee for its efforts to stay abreast of the problems and issues raised by the fast-paced Internet world.
We present the views of our Association in three parts. First, we outline the more common types of Internet intellectual property disputes and explain the kinds of jurisdictional issues that arise in these disputes. In the second part, we discuss two important recent reforms - the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the ICANN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) for domain names disputes - and explain the impact these reforms have had on jurisdictional issues. Finally, we present a few discussion points and questions that may stimulate debate on these issues. In this final part of our statement, we offer no clear solutions, but we do attempt to identify certain aspects of the recent reforms that have worked and explore the possibility of building upon such successes.
Internet intellectual property disputes are common and varied. Certain types of disputes, however, have been more common than others. We briefly discuss the following types of disputes in this section:
Most of our discussion focuses on the question of whether there is personal jurisdiction over a defendant under a particular set of facts. Subject matter jurisdiction is seldom in dispute in the intellectual property cases because these disputes usually involve claims based on federal statutory law. We do not, therefore, discuss the potential for subject matter jurisdiction disputes, although we recognize that such disputes are important.(1)
Personal jurisdiction can be important at the beginning or end of a legal fight. In many cases, a defendant will challenge personal jurisdiction through a motion to dismiss early in the proceeding. That is the context of most published decisions involving personal jurisdiction disputes. But personal jurisdiction issues can be equally important when trying to enforce a default judgment obtained against an absent defendant. This latter situation is particularly troublesome in the Internet context because of the increasing number of cases involving U.S. plaintiffs and foreign defendants. In many such cases, the U.S. plaintiff will be unable to enforce such a judgment in another country.
Enforcement should be less problematic if the Defendant resides in the United States, but personal jurisdiction can be an important issue in that context, too. If a defendant resides in a remote state (i.e., other than the forum where the plaintiff's suit was filed), the defendant may allow the plaintiff to obtain a default judgment and then challenge the jurisdiction of the court that issued the default judgment when a subsequent enforcement action is brought in the state where the defendant resides. If such a challenge is successful, the default judgment will not be enforced.
Cybersquatting is one of the highest profile of the Internet intellectual property disputes. Cybersquatting has received a great deal of attention from courts, commentators, Congress, and organizations involved in the administration of the Domain Name System. This attention has resulted in important reforms, which are discussed below.
In the paradigm cybersquatting case, a person registers a well-known trademark as a domain name and then tries to sell the domain name to the trademark owner. Real examples of cybersquatting abound and the courts have uniformly condemned the practice. There were serious jurisdictional questions in the early cybersquatting cases, however, because the cybersquatters seldom resided in the same forum as the trademark owners. In most of the cases, the fight was over which U.S. district court should hear the case, although there have been cybersquatting cases involving foreign defendants.
Courts typically find personal jurisdiction over a cybersquatter in the trademark owner's home forum if the cybersquatter has taken steps to sell the name, for a profit, to the trademark owner. These decision are based on the Supreme Court's decision in Calder v. Jones, 465 U.S. 783 (1984), where jurisdiction was found over two nonresident reporters because of the intentional nature of the reporters' acts. Such acts were characterized as a targeting of the plaintiff in her home forum. Thus, the defendant reporters should have reasonably expected to be hailed into court there to answer for their actions.
In the cybersquatter cases, the courts have held that an attempt to sell a domain name to a trademark owner constitutes a targeting of the trademark owner in its home forum. See, e.g., Panavision Int'l L.P. v. Toeppen, 938 F. Supp. 616 (C.D. Cal. 1996), aff'd, 141 F.3d 1316 (9th Cir. 1998). The cybersquatter's acts are analogous to those of the reporters in the Calder v. Jones case. This logic has been followed by courts considering cybersquatting cases.
Cybersquatting, of course, is not the only abuse of the domain name system that implicates trademark rights. Another example is the use of a competitor's trademark to divert business from the competitor. Classic passing off is also possible via the Internet, as are other types of bad faith infringement. These other scenarios present some of the same jurisdictional issues that have become common in the cybersquatter cases.
Courts are likely to follow in these cases the same approach used in the cybersquatter cases. That is, if the facts show that defendant has targeted the plaintiff trademark owner, personal jurisdiction over the defendant is likely in the plaintiff's home forum. But these other cases include scenarios that pose problems under this approach. Consider, for example, a person who registers a well-known trademark as a domain name and then refuses to communicate in any way with the trademark owner. The registrant has denied the trademark owner use of its property on the Internet, but has the registrant targeted the trademark owner in the owner's home forum? This abuse of the domain name system can be just as harmful to a trademark owner as the cybersquatting situation.
Music piracy is the hot Internet intellectual property issue of the day. The recording industry has brought suit against a number of prominent players in the Internet music "sharing" business. These include cases against mp3.com and napster.com. Although these cases raise extremely interesting and important substantive legal issues, there have been no significant personal jurisdiction disputes in these cases.
If the entertainment plaintiffs decide to pursue actions against smaller players or even individual infringers, personal jurisdiction could become an important issue, especially if the infringer resides outside the United States. This scenario is quite common, with news stories of individuals from various countries around the world disseminating protected works over the Internet. First run movies are now available, although the file size and quality are major impediments to wide piracy of such films. For now, the debate is likely to continue to focus on music piracy.
There have been cases brought against individual infringers for music piracy. These include cases brought against college students. Some of these cases were brought in the forum where the defendant resided, thus avoiding any personal jurisdiction issue. There likely were other reasons (e.g., local media coverage) for the plaintiffs' choice of forum in these cases, but the important point here is that few of the music piracy cases have involved jurisdictional disputes.
There have been fewer Internet patent infringement cases, but the number of such cases will increase significantly as more business method patents are issued. The patent infringement cases to date have not involved many personal jurisdiction disputes. There is the potential for such disputes, however, as the owners of business method patents attempt to enforce their patents against smaller Internet users. So long as the fights are truly clashes of the titans, jurisdiction problems will be rare.
The recurring problem of enforcing U.S. intellectual property rights against a foreign defendant will be a problem here, too. In the past, U.S. patent owners had certain remedies against the non-U.S. defendant, such as blocking importation through an action before the International Trade Commission. Such remedies will be of little help against an infringer using a patented business method or software from a computer located in a country that is not friendly to the U.S.
Many, probably most, trademark disputes do not involve bad faith. In such cases, the Calder v. Jones targeting logic will not hold. The typical argument for jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant is that the defendant sells infringing goods in the forum state and, therefore, the infringement, or at least some of the infringing acts, occur in the forum state.
This argument is often less compelling when the only allegedly infringing act in the forum state is the "presence" of an Internet site. Almost all courts have held that operating a passive, noncommercial Internet site, without more, will not support personal jurisdiction in a remote forum. If, however, the site is commercially significant, and the defendant does a good deal of business with residents of the forum state via the site, personal jurisdiction is likely.
There are perhaps an infinite number of other types of trademark disputes. The reason we treat this group of cases separately is that the key recent reforms have focused on the bad faith cases. To the extent these reforms have eliminated or reduced jurisdictional problems, such improvement will not apply to the "other" trademark cases.
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and ICANN's UDRP are substantive measures intended to curb the bad faith registration and use of domain names. These two reforms have much in common, but differ in several important respects. In this section, we give an overview of these reforms and explain the impact they have had on the personal jurisdiction problems described above.
The Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act(2) was passed as part of a large omnibus bill last fall. It was signed by President Clinton on November 29, 1999, and became effective immediately, although certain remedies under the Act may only be applied prospectively. The Act targets bad faith registration or use of domain names.(3)
The Act provides for statutory damages of $1,000 to $100,000 per violation. These damages are meant to compensate trademark owners for the harm caused by cybersquatting and to deter future cybersquatting activity. AIPLA fully supported the Act, especially the statutory damages provisions, and believes these damages are an important part of this reform package.
The Act also creates a federal in rem action against a domain name. The in rem provisions were included in the Act to ensure that U.S. trademark owners would have legal recourse in the United States. The in rem provisions require the trademark owner to attempt to locate the domain name registrant and to provide the registrant with reasonable notice of the intended action. If the trademark owner, after making such efforts, is unable to identify a U.S. forum with personal jurisdiction over the registrant, an in rem action may be filed. If the in rem procedure is used, the Act's statutory damages are not available.
The in rem procedure was challenged in an early case and upheld by the court. In Caesars World, Inc. v. Caesars-Palace.com, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2671, 54 U.S.P.Q.2d 1121 (E.D. Va. March 3, 2000), the owner of the domain name appeared and argued that the in rem proceeding was unconstitutional because the owner was available to litigate the dispute. The Court disagreed, finding that the trademark owner had made a reasonable effort to locate the domain name owner and had provided the domain name owner reasonable notice of the in rem proceeding. The latter effort obviously worked, as the domain name owner appeared and challenged the court's jurisdiction.(4)
The Act is also important for symbolic reasons. By enacting a new federal law that prohibits cybersquatting and other bad faith abuses of the domain name system, Congress and the President sent a strong signal to the Internet community. The U.S. Government made clear that it recognizes and supports the rights of intellectual property owners in this new medium. AIPLA and its members believe that such support is vital to the future economic role of the Internet as a new forum for conducting business.
The long-awaited ICANN dispute resolution policy went into effect for most domain name registrars on December 1, 1999. The policy went into effect for the three then remaining registrars (America Online, Name-It Corp., and NSI - the three largest registrars) on Jan. 3, 2000. The ICANN policy was published in late August, 1999 with the implementation announced in October, 1999.
The ICANN dispute resolution policy targets abuse of the domain name system. The policy requires a showing of bad faith registration and use, although the examples of what constitutes such a showing indicate that "use" will be construed rather broadly. The decisions under the policy confirm this reading.
The ICANN policy uses an administrative dispute resolution process. A party with a complaint about a domain name submits its complaint to an approved dispute resolution provider, which must have a list of approved panelists who are qualified to resolve domain name disputes. The dispute is ultimately decided by the panelists, who inform the provider of their decision. The provider then informs the domain name registrar of the outcome, and, after a 10-day waiting period, the domain name registrar complies with the panel decision. The panel decisions are to be in writing and published on the Internet, except in exceptional cases where the panel finds some compelling reason to withhold publication.
There are four approved dispute resolution providers under the ICANN policy; WIPO, The National Arbitration Forum, the disputes.org/eResolution Consortium, and CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution.(5) Each provider has a different background. Although there may be reasons to favor one provider over another, the selection of a provider appears to be less important than the underlying facts and the manner in which those facts are presented.
ICANN now provides a statistical summary of the proceedings under the UDRP on its site. See http://www.icann.org/udrp/proceedings-stat.htm. As of June 22, 2000, there have been 1016 proceedings(6) and 535 decisions under the UDRP. Another 57 proceedings have been disposed of without decision (e.g., due to settlement or agreed withdrawal of the complaint). ICANN also now provides full-text searching of the decisions under the UDRP and provides an index of the decisions. The decisions rendered under the UDRP are published and prior decisions are often cited in subsequent decisions. Although at least one U.S. court has explicitly noted that such decisions are in no way binding on a U.S. court, a few U.S. court decisions have noted with approval the reasoning applied in some of the UDRP decisions. It appears, therefore, that the UDRP decisions constitute a new body of quasi-common law. It will be interesting to see what impact this new body of law will have on future legal proceedings.
A proceeding under the UDRP is instituted by filing a complaint with one of the approved dispute resolution providers. The ICANN policy, and its supporting rules, specify the particular requirements for the complaint. Each dispute resolution provider provides additional guidance for submitting a complaint. The complainant must identify the type of remedies sought. Only cancellation or transfer of the domain name are available as remedies.
One particularly important part of the ICANN rules is the requirement that a complainant submit to the jurisdiction of a court in "at least one specified mutual jurisdiction" for purposes of a challenge to a decision under the UDRP.(7) The term "mutual jurisdiction" is defined in the domain name registration agreement, and in the rules, as either the location of the domain name registrar or the residence of the registrant. This provision could be important to U.S. trademark owners if the domain name owner and the registrar are located outside the United States.
It is important for a U.S. trademark owner considering an ICANN UDRP complaint to first determine where the applicable domain name registrar is located. Several of the newly approved registrars are located outside the United States, with one in Kuwait, two in China, and several in Europe. A U.S. trademark owner may find tribunals in other jurisdictions significantly less inclined to provide the kind of broad trademark protection we have come to expect from U.S. courts.
Once an approved dispute resolution provider receives a formal complaint, the provider checks the complaint for administrative compliance with the ICANN rules and, if the complaint complies with requirements, forwards the complaint to the domain name owner. The domain name owner (i.e., the registrant) has 20 days to submit a response, which must provide a specific response to each allegation contained in the complaint. The response must provide or identify specific evidence that negates the accusations of bad faith. The ICANN policy provides examples of the types of evidence that would negate such accusations.
If no response is submitted, the panel resolves the dispute based on the complaint. If a response is submitted, the panel resolves the dispute based on the complaint and the response. There is no formal procedure for taking additional evidence, although the dispute resolution provider is authorized to implement additional procedures necessary to carry out its functions. It is clear, however, that the intention and expectation is that most domain name disputes will be amenable to resolution based on the materials submitted with the complaint and response. In-person hearings are allowed only in extraordinary cases.
The panel's decision is sent to the domain name registrar for implementation. A 10-day waiting period is provided to allow the registrant time to challenge a panel's decision in court. The registrant must submit evidence within the 10-day period showing that it has filed suit challenging the panel's decision or the decision will be implemented by the registrar. If evidence of such a challenge is submitted to the registrar, no action will be taken until the parties or the court inform the registrar that the dispute has been resolved. The registrar will respect settlement agreements.
Panel decisions must be reached, and sent to the provider, within 14 days of the submission of the complaint and response. If no response is submitted, the 14-day period runs from the date a response was due. The decisions are in writing and provide the reasons for the decision. "If after considering the submissions the panel finds that the complaint was brought in bad faith, for example in an attempt at reverse domain name high-jacking or was brought primarily to harass the domain-name holder, the panel shall declare in its decision that the complaint was brought in bad faith and constitutes an abuse of the administrative proceeding." This explicit directive was included to deter abuses of the UDRP.
One significant difference between the new ICANN UDRP and the older NSI dispute resolution policy is the effect of court proceedings. Under ICANN's policy, if "any legal proceedings are initiated prior to or during an administrative proceeding in respect of a domain name dispute that is the subject of the complaint, the panel shall have the discretion to decide whether to suspend or terminate the administrative proceeding, or to proceed to a decision." Under NSI's policy, the administrative process stopped if either party filed suit.
The new ICANN UDRP went into effect just as the new Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act became effective. The ICANN process offers an administrative alternative to the new litigation option created by the Act. The remedies under the ICANN process are more limited, but based on the number of ICANN complaints filed, this difference appears to be less important to trademark owners than the time and cost savings offered by the ICANN UDRP.
Substantively, the ICANN UDRP and the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act are similar. Although the UDRP requires a showing of bad faith registration and use of a domain name, the decisions indicates a very broad interpretation of the word "use" by the ICANN panels. Where there is a clear difference between the registrant's state of mind at the point of registration and the point of use, the substantive difference between the UDRP and the Act will be important. There have been some such cases brought under the UDRP, but in the vast majority of the proceedings under the UDRP, the outcome presumably would have been the same under the Act.
The UDRP renders personal jurisdiction issues moot. Domain name registrants agree to be bound by the administrative UDRP proceedings as part of their domain name registration agreement. This contractual approach to administrative dispute resolution works, at least in part, because ICANN has the authority to implement effective remedies against the registrants. That is, even if a domain name registrant did not want to be bound by the outcome of a proceeding under the UDRP, the registrant's domain name will still be deleted or transferred if the panel so decides.
A typical UDRP proceeding involving one domain name will cost about $1000 in official fees. The legal fees required to prepare and submit an ICANN complaint are likely to be similar to the fees required to prepare and submit a complaint under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. There should be no additional costs involved with the ICANN proceeding, although there will be additional costs for an action brought under the Act. Even if a defendant makes no appearance in an action brought under the Act, the plaintiff will have to move for default and later for a default judgment. In addition, the plaintiff will have to enforce any judgment obtained. Enforcement follows as a matter of course in the ICANN process. Most ICANN cases are resolved in 4-6 weeks.
The timing and similarity of the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act and the ICANN UDRP provide a unique opportunity to compare and contrast the efficacy of administrative versus legal dispute resolution. The outcome of this comparison could not be more striking. To date, there have been over 1000 complaints brought under the UDRP and over 500 published decisions. It is not possible to accurately determine how many cases have been filed under the Act, but we can count the reported decisions. To date, there have been about a dozen such decisions, including several that are "published" only on the Lexis and Westlaw services.
Many trademark owners apparently prefer the UDRP to the Act. The UDRP provides the relief the trademark owners need most: cancellation or transfer of the domain names. It is fast and usually less expensive than a federal case brought under the Act. Although the Act offers the possibility of statutory damages, most trademark owners have opted for the UDRP to resolve their cybersquatting disputes. Such choices may be driven by a variety of considerations, but one consideration may be the difficulty, or perceived difficulty, in enforcing a judgment for damages against a cybersquatter. There also is the reality that a judgment under the Act is not self-executing, whereas the UDRP decision requires no further action by a prevailing complainant.(8)
Another important difference between the UDRP and a federal case under the Act, is the complete elimination of jurisdictional issues in a proceeding under the UDRP. If the dispute centers on the registration and use of a domain name, there is jurisdiction. The old notions of personal jurisdiction so common to litigators in the United States have no role in the ICANN proceedings. Physical location is of no consequence. The entity conducting the procedure has the power to implement the judgments reached under the procedure. No more is needed.
This point is important. The UDRP is a good example of an administrative procedure specifically developed for the Internet context. The efficacy of this administrative procedure suggests that similar procedures might be effective in resolving other types of Internet disputes.
Several questions follow from these lessons. Would it be possible to extend the UDRP to include other types of trademark disputes that arise on the Internet? If not, why not? Although it would surely require additional panelists and probably additional dispute resolution providers, that would not appear to be a valid reason to forego such a potentially effective remedial process. And why not try similar procedures for other types of specialized Internet disputes, including patent and copyright disputes?(9) Choice of law issues and conflict of law issues will arise during the development process of any such procedure, but that was true for the ICANN UDRP, too.
Perhaps the biggest difference between the domain name disputes and other types of Internet disputes is the availability of an appropriate remedy. When the dispute centers on registration and use of a domain name, an obvious remedy, should the complainant prevail, is cancellation or transfer of the domain name. That remedy is easy to carry out. But what remedy would be appropriate for other types of Internet disputes?
The deletion or suspension of a domain name can be a very powerful remedy. Even if the dispute does not directly involve the domain name, it may be appropriate to delete or suspend the domain name of a party that is found to be violating the legal rights of others via the Internet. For example, if a person in Sweden is using a web site to pirate music and to provide that music to others, we believe it would be appropriate to suspend the domain name being used by that person.
Of course, the person in this example could simply apply for a new domain name, but that would pose problems. First, if persons have come to know the site by its domain name, much traffic will be lost if a new domain name is used. Second, by the time the Internet traffic found the new site, that domain name could also be deleted or suspended, assuming the site is being used for the same illicit activities. And third, the domain name system could take the more extreme step of denying the person any new domain names by using the IP address of the person's computer. There are ways around that solution, too, but at some point, it becomes too difficult and ineffective to work around all the obstacles and most persons are likely to eventually give up the fight.
Another question, and one of particular relevance here, is whether ICANN should establish a pilot program for administratively resolving certain other types of Internet legal disputes. Could Congress, or the Department of Commerce, encourage ICANN to modify the domain name registration agreement to also include an agreement to resolve certain disputes through such an administrative process? While we continue to work with ICANN, we believe the development of broader administrative dispute resolution procedures may require input from the U.S. Government. We believe that some further investigation of this possibility is warranted.
Perhaps the most troubling Internet "procedural" problem facing intellectual property owners today is the prospect of non-U.S. infringers acting via the Internet. This problem is already common and will become more common as the numbers of Internet users residing outside the United States continues to climb. What can a U.S. intellectual property owner do to combat such problems? If the non-U.S. resident does not appear in the case, the plaintiff may obtain a default judgment, but such judgments are worthless unless the country where the infringer resides will enforce the judgment. We know that many countries will not enforce such judgments.
Unless some form of binding administrative dispute resolution procedure is adopted to resolve such disputes, it seems the only viable long-term solution is through international treaty or its equivalent. We believe treaty discussions on these issues should go forward, but we are concerned that such processes may be too slow to effectively respond to the legal disputes arising on the Internet. That is why we believe some form of extended administrative dispute resolution process offers the best hope for the future.
STATEMENT OF
MARK A. THURMON
ON BEHALF OF THE
AMERICAN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW ASSOCIATION
AT THE
OVERSIGHT HEARING
ON
THE INTERNET AND FEDERAL COURTS:
ISSUES AND OBSTACLES
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON COURTS AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUNE 29, 2000
1. Subject matter jurisdiction disputes can arise in transnational intellectual property disputes, because of differing legal rules in different countries. That issue is beyond the scope of this statement.
2. The Act is codified at 15 U.S.C. 1125 (d).
3. This is an important difference between the Act and ICANN's UDRP. The UDRP requires bad faith registration and use, a point discussed briefly below.
4. In a more recent case, a plaintiff unsuccessfully tried to invoke the Act's in rem procedure. See Lucent Tech. v. lucentsucks.com, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6159 (E.D. Va., May 3, 2000). In this case, the court held that because the defendant could be found, an action against the defendant must be brought, rather than an in rem action against the domain name.
5. The CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution was approved as a provider effective May 22, 2000, but is limited to 20 proceedings per month for its first two months of operation.
6. This number does not include actions terminated for recommencement.
7. Although the submission to jurisdiction is limited to such challenges, it may be difficult for a U.S. trademark owner to contest jurisdiction over other related matters if such matters are brought in the same action that challenges a UDRP decision.
8. Of course, if the UDRP decision directs the registrar to transfer the domain name(s) to the complainant, some administrative actions will be required by the complainant to effectuate the transfer.
9. We restrict our comments to intellectual property disputes, as that is within the ambit of issues which AIPLA addresses, but this logic should apply with equal force to other specialized legal disputes that arise on the Internet.