Emmanuel Gillet

Counterfeiting

Black Friday and Cyber Monday: detecting abusive domain name registrations and acting quickly

In the run-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday, fraudsters accelerate: domains resembling major brands are registered in bulk to host counterfeit shops, harvest banking data and deceive consumers hunting for bargains. The article's premise is simple — registering a domain is never an end in itself; what follows is what matters — and it illustrates the point with three WIPO precedents involving French flagship brands: Galeries Lafayette (D2018-2758), Moncler (D2017-0547) and Air France (D2019-0191), each confronted with cybersquatted or typosquatted names feeding fraudulent schemes. The operational message is about tempo: daily domain monitoring to spot abusive registrations at birth, a legal team ready to react, and the UDRP as the most efficient weapon once abuse is characterised. During high season, every day of delay converts directly into deceived customers.

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Counterfeiting

Fendi v Rolo Fashion: Assessing Damages When Counterfeit Sales Do Not Translate into Lost Sales

Establishing infringement and pricing it are two very different exercises. In Fendi Italia Srl & Ors v Rolo Fashion Ltd & Anor [2026] EWHC 1703 (IPEC), four LVMH houses had already obtained judgment in default on liability; what remained was the assessment of damages for the online sale of counterfeit luxury goods. HHJ Hacon refused to treat the quality of “superfakes” as proof of substitution, rebuilt the scale of the trading from incomplete disclosure, and settled on 4,752 sales, a substitution rate of 15% and £200,000 of lost profit. For the remaining 4,039 transactions he applied the user principle, held the hypothetical royalty available in trade mark cases and set it at a “bare minimum” of 3%; reputational harm was rejected for want of evidence. This article reads the judgment against Article 13 of Directive 2004/48 and asks what online monitoring must preserve if a loss is later to be proved.

Counterfeiting · Court Litigation · Marketplace Enforcement · Trademark Law
19 August 2026
Initially published on iptwins.com
Counterfeiting

When the Lion Saves the Panther from Counterfeiting: Anatomy of a Fraudulent Online Store and the Evolution of Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is no longer limited to the opportunistic registration of a domain name. In WIPO Case No. D2026-1806, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios obtained the transfer of pinkpanthershop.com, a domain operating a fully-fledged fraudulent online store built around the Pink Panther brand: polished visual identity, seamless purchasing journey, legal notices and a false sense of legitimacy. This article dissects the anatomy of such fraudulent ecosystems and the technical and legal indicators that reveal them, from warehouse locations to privacy shields. It also revisits the role of disclaimers in UDRP proceedings — including the Oki Data criteria — and shows why bad faith must be assessed in context. A telling illustration of how online brand protection has shifted from defending names to dismantling infrastructures.

Counterfeiting · Cybersquatting · UDRP
22 July 2026
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

26 November 2021

Jurisdiction

WIPO

Topics

Brand Monitoring · Cybersquatting · Phishing · Typosquatting

Industry

Luxury, Retail & E-commerce

Related Decision(s)

D2018-2758WIPO Arbitration and Mediation CenterWIPO, Administrative Panel Decision, Société Anonyme des Galeries Lafayette, Case No. D2018-2758, 8 April 20192019-04-08
D2017-0547WIPO Arbitration and Mediation CenterWIPO, Administrative Panel Decision, Moncler S.p.A., Case No. D2017-0547, 23 May 20172017-05-23
D2019-0191WIPO Arbitration and Mediation CenterWIPO, Administrative Panel Decision, Société Air France, Case No. D2019-0191, 25 March 20192019-03-25
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