Madrid and Hague Systems
The top five countries for Madrid System applications were the US, Germany, China, France and the UK.
Applications from China grew by 36.3% while those from the Russian Federation increased by 23.9%. Austria, Italy and the Netherlands each saw a small drop in filings.
The biggest filers were L’Oréal, Richter Gedeon, ADP Gauselmann, Novartis and Abercrombie & Fitch Europe.
WIPO also published data on the PCT and Hague System on 21 March. The number of designs in applications filed under the Hague System grew by 3.8% to reach 19,429 although the number of applications fell compared to 2016.
German applicants are the biggest users of the system, followed by those in Switzerland, the Reublic of Korea, the US and France. Samsung and LG Electronics ranked first and second respectively in the list of top applicants.
See WIPO’s announcement for the full statistics.
Cybersquatting cases
A record 3,074 UDRP cases were filed at WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center in 2017. Cases relating to new gTLDs accounted for more than 12% of the caseload, with registrations in .store, .site and .online the most commonly disputed. Meanwhile, ccTLD disputes accounted for about 17% of filings (WIPO is designated as a dispute resolution service by 76 ccTLD registries).
Three industries – banking and finance, fashion and internet and IT – accounted for nearly one-third of all cases. The country where most cases originated was the US, followed by France, the UK, Germany and Switzerland. The biggest filers were Philip Morris, Michelin, AB Electrolux, Andrey Ternovskiy (Chatroulette) and Sanofi.
Since the first UDRP case in 1999, WIPO has received more than 39,000 cases covering more than 73,000 domain names.
Read more in WIPO’s announcement.
Issue 087
The UK is joining the Hague System. Plus: get an access code for e-filing
The deadline for registration for the EUIPO Case Law Conference has been extended to 13 April. Plus: details of planned 
