Emmanuel Gillet

Intellectual Property

Africa: foreign direct investment, brands and domain names

While global foreign direct investment slowed, Africa stood out with 11% growth according to UNCTAD's World Investment Report, Egypt, South Africa, Ethiopia and Morocco leading the way, with China, the United States, France and India among the main investors. The article links these capital flows to intangible assets: investment is only protected if the brands that carry it are. WIPO's statistics speak volumes — 68.9% of trademark applications filed with OAPI between 2016 and 2018 came from non-residents, a proportion that varies markedly from country to country. From this the article derives a simple principle: to each trademark should correspond the relevant domain names, under the ccTLDs of the countries of operation and under .AFRICA, without forgetting the city extensions already delegated (.CAPETOWN, .DURBAN, .JOBURG) and those one may expect one day (.LAGOS, .CAIRO, .KINSHASA). Registering early costs little; recovering later costs much.

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Intellectual Property

NFTs and intellectual property: summary of a report submitted to the U.S. Congress

At the request of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s IP Subcommittee (9 June 2022), the USPTO and the Copyright Office studied the interplay between NFTs and intellectual property, publishing their joint report on 12 March 2024 after sixty written contributions and three public roundtables. The report recalls that owning an NFT does not convey ownership of intellectual property in the associated work: token and work must be licensed separately. Existing copyright and trademark law is deemed sufficient, even though enforcement is hampered by counterfeiters’ anonymity and decentralised storage; the USPTO has updated its Identification Manual for NFT-related goods and services. The authors recommend best practices for platforms — seller verification, transparency on transferred rights, detection tools, DMCA-compliant takedowns — and suggest a centralised dispute mechanism inspired by the UDRP for blockchain domain names, while cautioning against premature legislation.

Copyright · Trademark Law

3 June 2024

Initially published on iptwins.com

Intellectual Property

The future of IP Rights in the metaverse: insights from the British Intellectual Property Office

On 7 March 2024, the British Intellectual Property Office published a report on the future of intellectual property rights in the metaverse. The starting point is structural: there is not one metaverse but a multitude of environments — “multiverses” — with varying degrees of autonomy and interoperability, not all built on blockchains, and not on the same ones. This fragmentation and decentralisation undermine traditional, centralised models of IP governance and enforcement. The report questions the adequacy of conventional dispute resolution when infringements involve multiple contributors and AI-generated content, and recommends exploring alternative mechanisms, citing the UDRP experience for domain names as a model and considering blockchain-based decentralised justice systems. Its central conclusion is a call for international cooperation and legal innovation, so that transparent governance frameworks protect rights holders and metaverse stakeholders alike.

Online Dispute Resolution · Trademark Law

9 April 2024

Initially published on iptwins.com

Domain Name Governance

DNS Abuse: How Can Domain Names Linked to the Same Actor Be Connected?

On 18 August 2026, ICANN published for public comment the Initial Report of its DNS Abuse Mitigation Policy Development Process (PDP 1). Among its proposals are Associated Domain Checks: when a registrar acts on an abuse report, it should also examine the other domain names held by the same customer. In its comments of 25 September 2026, the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center supports the approach but points out its main limitation: the checks stop at the edge of a single registrar's portfolio. Bad actors know this and spread their registrations across several registrars, which hampers consolidated UDRP proceedings. WIPO suggests exploring cross-registrar mechanisms without saying which data could link the names. The article argues that payment data, pseudonymised, could serve as that common denominator, while acknowledging its limits (prepaid cards, fraud, multiple payment methods): an indicator rather than proof. It marks a shift from a one-domain, one-investigation logic to a network approach.

Cybersecurity · Cybersquatting · Domain Name Law · Domain Name System · ICANN · Online Brand Protection · UDRP

28 September 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

Blockchain & Law

DNS and Web3: How Can We Avoid Importing Cryptosquatting into the DNS?

The DNS and blockchain-based alternative naming systems are converging, with projects such as .BLOCKCHAIN and the .ROBOT cryptoTLD seeking to operate the same string in both worlds. In August 2026, ICANN's Technical Study Group released an Initial Report on integrating gTLDs with alternative naming systems, built on a "string + controller" principle: the same name must remain under the same control across systems, with its status kept in sync. In September 2026, the SSAC supported this synchronisation but noted that applying the UDRP and the URS becomes difficult when a registrant exists only in an alternative system, without conventional registration data. The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center warns that cybersquatting is already widespread in these systems: mapping names automatically into the DNS would import existing infringements. Trademark owners therefore need functionally equivalent protection mechanisms, including a way to prevent infringing names from being activated, as initiatives like Unstoppable Domains joining GlobalBlock have begun to show.

Blockchain · Cybersquatting · Domain Name System · ICANN · New gTLDs · Online Brand Protection · UDRP · URS · Web3 Domains

24 September 2026

Initially published on iptwins.com

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Article Information

Author

Emmanuel Gillet

Publication Date

29 January 2020

Jurisdiction

Topics

Domain Name Law · Online Brand Protection · Trademark Law

Industry

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