I'm somewhere between Doug and Warwick on this. Despite the media hype over
a number of decisions that have been badly/wrongly decided, I think we have
to look beyond all the media hype and objectively consider the job being
performed by the various dispute resolution providers (and not just WIPO).
Although I can't remember examples off the top of my head, there have been
quite a number of cases where I have read a media report publicising what
appears to be a terrible decisions -- then I've gone and read the actual
decision and seen the blatant examples of bad faith (such as in Warwick's
example) that could only justify a decision against the registrant.

Of the numerous decisions handed down by the DRPs, I think you'd find that
the "bad" decisions make up only a relatively small proportion -- not
necessarily because the arbitrators are doing such a great job, but because
in most cases there is blatant bad faith. It is (for obvious reasons) only
the interesting and poorly decided cases that are publicised.

No court has ever heard such a huge number of matters in such a short period
of time as the DRPs under the UDRP. Courts have professionally-trained
judges who have the benefit of a considerable greater amount of time, and
yet they still occasionally reach bad decisions. The DRP arbitrators as far
as I know only handle these arbitrations in their spare time and have an
extremely short period of time in which to hand down their decision because
the UDRP is meant to be cheaper and faster than the courts.

In this context, I really don't think that they are doing such a bad job.


>
> Well yes Warwick I'm afraid you've got me on that one. As
> usual you've got to hear both sides to make a sensible
> comment.
>
> If the guy was 'bigpons' dog food or something I suppose
> no-one would have even made the connection (and that was the
> superficial view I took on seeing the list) however if you
> go out of your way to create a problem then it seems
> justice was done.
>
> regards doug