Natalia Stepanova and Sergey Medvedev have been appointed as arbitrators with MFSD

Natalia Stepanova, Leading Lawyer, and Sergey Medvedev, PhD, LLM Senior Lawyer (both of Gorodissky & Partners, Moscow), are appointed as examiners (arbitrators) for domain name dispute resolution within the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) at MFSD IP Dispute Resolution Center (https://www.mfsd.it/). MFSD was accredited back in 2001 specifically for resolution of global IP conflicts and was subsequently approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in 2015 as the URS Dispute Resolution Service Provider.

URS procedure has been developed in order to complement the existing mechanism of administrative enforcement of trademark, company name and trade name rights provided by the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) that was approved earlier by ICANN. URS procedure is used mostly for combatting infringements IP rights related to registration of “new-era” domain names, including those directly related to Russia, by third parties. The main distinctive feature of the URS procedure is that the litigious domain name is being suspended (blocked) for the term of its registration with the possibility to extend such a suspension (blocking) for an additional year, while the UDRP procedure allows cancellation of registration of a conflicting domain name and transfer of the same to the complainant. For many rights holders the URS procedure is much more effective IP-protection ADR method, comparing to the UDRP procedure, especially in the terms of timing and costs.

In the course of collaboration and appointment of Gorodissky lawyers as examiners (arbitrators), MFSD and Gorodissky & Partners held the first webinar on domain disputes and protection of rights related to trade identities. Sergey Medvedev made a presentation “Domain Name Dispute Resolution in Russia” and highlighted legal and practical aspects of the current Internet-state and infrastructure in the Russian jurisdiction, enforcement of trademark and company name rights in connection with domain name disputes and provided the best court practice in this area. Aside from that, the speaker cited a couple of landmark court cases and precedents, including those from his own practice, surrounding domain conflicts. About 20 lawyers and trademark attorneys from different major companies and law firms, including Gorodissky clients, attended the webinar.

Valery Medvedev, Managing Partner of Gorodissky & Partners summarized the results of the conducted webinar and provided the following comment in terms of the firm’s collaboration with MSFD: “The webinar turned out to be very interesting and useful for us and for our clients, and it called a fairly lively discussion among all participants. Domain name dispute resolution practice evolves constantly, which can be demonstrated, in particular, by the implementation of the URS procedure with the purpose to create a new ADR enforcement mechanism available for trademarks and other trade identities. Our firm, being the well-known IP-litigation service provider on the legal market, actively monitors the latest trends in domain name disputes, both on the national and international levels. Without any doubt, the appointment of our lawyers as examiners with MSFD invites us to be in front of a new international IP-arena and increases our overall IP-enforcement competence, which, in turn, shall allow us to provide the associated legal services more professionally. Therefore, we are very happy to cooperate with MSFD and we will be enjoying the same indeed!”