Revised Supplemental Rules Prevent Single Filing Against Multiple Registrants

The National Arbitration Forum’s (NAF) revised Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) Supplemental Rules became effective on January 1 2006. While most of the revisions do not have a material effect on the filing of complaints under the UDRP (eg, increased filing fees and the limitation for each party to a single additional submission), the new definitions section has a significant impact on a fairly common type of domain dispute.

Under UDRP Rule 1, the "respondent" is defined as the "holder of a domain name registration against which a complaint is initiated". NAF’s Supplemental Rule 1(d) now defines the respondent further. "The holder of a domain name registration", as used in UDRP Rule 1, (i) means the single person or entity listed in the WHOIS registration information at the time of the filing of the complaint with NAF, and (ii) once the registrar has verified registration, is limited to the single person or entity as verified by the registrar.