Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure

PDDRP is the abbreviation for Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure. It is one of the rights protection mechanisms (RPM) for the trademark holders which were recommended by the various community participants such as the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT). The Trademark holders and the gTLD registry operators are the parties to the dispute.

Applicable Rules

In the Registry Agreement it has been mentioned that the registry operator will have to participate in the procedures and are bounded by the resulting determinations. Also, more than one trademark provider is selected to implement the trademark PDDRP. Out of all the providers, every provider has its own additional rule which need to be followed while filing a complaint.

The functions of PDDRP

The PDDRP is intended towards providing a mechanism and works towards bringing a complaint not to the domain name owner but directly to the registry. This happens especially when the registry engages itself in a practice or a pattern wherein it encourages the third parties to register against the infringing domains. In other words, the PDDRP is one of the most effective means to counter the bad-faith registrations at the second level.

Filing a complaint under PDDRP

Under the PDDRP, the complaint has to be filed electronically. The complaint will be first viewed for its technical compliance and will then be served and sent with a proper notice by the provider to the registry operator. The registry operator will get the subject of the complaint that will be consistent with the contact details listed in the registry agreement.

PDDRP and ICANN

The PDDRP was proposed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN had to face a lot of flak from the Registries Stakeholder Group (RySG) as the RySG was of the view that PDDRP was proposed by ICANN due to the lack of confidence that ICANN will be enforcing existing protections.