Weston named Panelist for World Intellectual Property Organization
Nick Weston, the name principal of Melbourne based powerhouse niche law firm Nicholas Weston, has been appointed to the Geneva, Switzerland-based World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center’s List of Arbitrators and Mediators and also the Center’s Domain Name Panel. WIPO is a United Nations organization. Mr Weston also serves as chairman of ASX listed biopharma, Agenix Limited [ASX:AGX; NASDAQ OTC: AGXLY] and charitable foundation Karma Currency.
Mr Weston will serve as a WIPO Domain Name Panelist to decide disputes under the “Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy” (UDRP) and the “.au Dispute Resolution Policy” (auDRP) the mandatory arbitration procedures for deciding competing claims to domain names. As a domain name panelist, Nick Weston will review domain name disputes and decide whether a domain name registration should be transferred, cancelled or the status quo maintained.
The UDRP applies primarily to international domains such as .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz. and .mobi. In addition, 56 country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) have now appointed WIPO as service provider for their domain name disputes. Apart from UDRP cases, the Center has administered over 15,000 cases under Sunrise policies relating to registrations in the start-up phase of new domains. The auDRP is an Australian adaptation of the UDRP for com.au, net.au, asn.au, id.au, edu.au and org.au domain names.
The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center has resolved more than 14,000 cases under the UDRP procedures involving parties from 144 countries and some 25,000 Internet domain names. More information about the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center is available HERE. More statistics in relation to Australian domain name disputes are available HERE.
Weston acts for brand owners and domain name registrants. His clients include the world’s second largest provider (after You Tube) of user generated on-line content, Heavy.com . He acted for the successful plaintiffs against 24 defendants in influential arbitration case, Mond v Berger (2004) 10 VR 534; [2004] VSC 45. Current work includes a Federal Court of Australia trade marks proceeding acting for the Japan Karate Association against the Japan Karate Association of Australia. Law firm Nicholas Weston publishes the Australian Trade Marks Law Blog.
Mr Weston attended both the WIPO Advanced Workshop on Domain Name Dispute Resolution: Update on Practice and Precedents and the WIPO Arbitration Workshop in October 2008.
The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center's CV for Mr Weston is located HERE.
