 Gwelodd Llywodraeth Cynwylliant Cymru nhw oeddordeb yn ganesolodol bandww. Rwy'n credu maen nhw'n hollwch arnaethiaeth cerddaint a mediadau Cenedig yw Llywodraeth Cenedig yw Llywodraeth Cenedig yw 400 ffordd yma ar ddırfodol 60 oes yma, ystod yn y pethau yma yn y graf o'r ddod, fel Wmg.com. Felly, ystod yn y graf o'r ddod, ac rwy'n cael ei ddod. Felly, ystod yn y graf o'r ddod. Felly, ystod yn y graf o'r ddod. Felly, rwy'n cael ei ddod, ac rwy'n cael ei ddod. Rwy'n cael ei ddod i'r sefydliadau Ierri Gwylbers, is the real expert and who is the director of the arbitration and mediation centre. So perhaps first if I may start on the technology dispute survey, which is available to you. As I mentioned, this is based on 400 responses, which is I think a very good response rate from respondents in over 60 countries, and it gives us an idea of what practitioners and industry think about the state of technology disputes internationally. There is an executive summary to the report, and I think the highlights that I would like in particular to signal are the following. First of all, less than 2% of agreements in relation to technology result in formal dispute proceedings. So that's an interesting piece of information at least for us. And I think the other thing that I would like to particularly emphasise, you can find in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth paragraph of the press release, the third from the bottom, and I think there's some very interesting results here. Upper most in the minds of parties to technology agreements cost and time of dispute resolution procedures. This comes through very clearly. And in that paragraph to which I referred, there's some interesting information. First of all, court litigation is the most frequently used procedure followed by arbitration and mediation. So court litigation was most common standalone clause 32%, arbitration 30% and mediation 12%. In terms of time, court litigation at home in your domestic jurisdiction on average takes three years, abroad on average 3.5 years. And similarly, legal costs in court litigation at home on average amount to $475,000 U.S. dollars abroad, foreign court litigation on average to slightly over $850,000 U.S. dollars. And on the other hand, if you compare the alternative dispute resolution procedures, mediation took on average eight months, which is significantly better than three years or 3.5 years. And 91% of the respondents stated that typically the costs of a mediation did not exceed $100,000. So that again is significantly better than the 400 and 75,000 or the 800,000. And then arbitration, and again it's in that same paragraph to which I referred, on average took slightly more than one year, which is again significantly better than three or 3.5. And on average it costs $400,000. So that's not necessarily a great improvement except its half of what foreign litigation costs on average. So what's the significance of all this? You know why we're talking about this? Well, I think the significance is that we live in a world where technology is increasingly important, and so the contractual relationships formed around technology are increasingly numerous. We now know a little bit about the behaviour in those contractual relationships. Less than 2% of them result in formal dispute resolution procedures, so this is not a massive amount at all. And then interestingly, you see, if you are entering into a technology agreement in this world, there's a significant chance it's going to be between parties located in different countries. You know, it'll be an international agreement. And then it becomes relevant to know what your exposure is to costs and time in the event that there is a dispute. And not only what your exposure is, but what your options are. And what this survey is telling us is that non-court options, namely arbitration and mediation, are delivering significantly better results. And so it's very useful to pay attention to that, obviously. So that's what I would say on this one, and we can come back to some discussion. And as I say, Eric can take you through a lot more detail if you would like in relation to that. But let me move on then to internet domain name disputes specifically, where, as you know, if I may say, the WIPO Aputation and Mediation Centre is the champion in terms of dispute resolution service provision, thanks to Eric and his colleagues. So last year, 2012, we had a record number of cases, once again, of cyber squatting cases. We had 2,884. If you go to the press release on page 9, annex 5, you'll see the evolution of cases over the years. So you see last year 2,884 cases covering 5,000 domain names, because a case can concern more than one domain name. We are very proud of the fact this is a very international procedure, and it caters for the international character of the internet. So in this respect, complainants and respondents came last year from 120 countries, and the cases were dealt with by 341 panellists from 48 countries. So we think this, that we have here, a procedure that is particularly adapted to the international character of the internet, and by the way in 13 different languages. And we do these cases, by the way, in all of the top level domains, the international domains, if you like, .com, .net, .org, and so on, plus in 67 national domains, so .ch, etc., .fr, for France, and so on. As to, let me make just a couple of other comments, as to the areas where cyber squatting is most prevalent, as judged by the cases, well this is retail, fashion and banking and finance. And you'll find some information of that in the press release, and if I may refer you to annex nine on page 13, you will see there examples of cases, samples of cases organised by different areas. So if you're looking for some banking, biotech and pharmaceutical areas, you'll see Bayer, Beringa, Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Hoffman-Larash, Gen and Tech, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, Yventus, and so on. So you have there a pretty good sampling of the cases in 2012. Let me then move on to our last, the last area that I wanted to touch on, which concerns new generic top level domains. So this is the action that is being taken by ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, to open up new domains, new top level domains, to the right of the dot. And they received nearly 2,000 applications, 1,930 applications for some 1,400 distinct new domains. Okay, so this is a real change in the landscape that is occurring. We're going from 10 or 20, 20 or so top level domains to his 1,400 new ones. Okay. And what we do is in this area, we continue the uniform dispute resolution procedure, applying to 2nd level domains, applying to what is to the left of the dot. So coke.com, so the coke is a 2nd level domain. So that continues, but in addition we have a role in something called the legal rights objection procedure. Okay. And that is a procedure whereby a trademark owner can bring in an objection to the granting of a new top level domain on the grounds that it infringes their trademark rights. So someone asked for a domain, for example, dot Coca-Cola. And they were not Coca-Cola. Okay. You could bring in an objection, a legal rights objection on the basis that Coca-Cola could, on the basis that it's allegedly infringing your trademark rights. And by the March 13 deadline, we received 71 LRO, legal rights objection cases, and you have, hot off the press, this little piece of paper, which will give you the proposed string that is the new top level domain on the left. So, for example, dot del Monti, who the objector is, the objector, the trademark owner, who the applicant is the applicant for the string, who the applicant is, and the status. Okay. So that's, do you want this? It's down here. So this is quite interesting information. You know, you can look down there and you'll see, are you okay? And you'll see this information, as I said, hot off the press for these cases that are coming out now. I think the only other thing that I would mention, if I may, and then you can ask questions, particularly for Eric. The only other thing that I would mention is that, last year, we were particularly active in expanding the range of our dispute resolution procedures. And one of the things that we are doing, new things that we're doing, is cooperating with national IP officers to provide mediation proceedings in respect of what we call opposition proceedings before the officers. So, let me just explain that. If you apply for a trademark, you know, and let's say the IP office grants it to you, then there is usually a period, either before or after grant, where someone else can object to the grant, oppose the grant to you. It's called an opposition procedure. They say, we don't think you should have granted that or you should grant that because it's too close to our mark. And that was a formal sort of judicial, quasi judicial procedure. We're applying mediation here in cooperation with the Singapore office and in cooperation with the Brazilian office. And we had our first cases in Brazil, in Singapore, that went very well last year. So, there, I will stop my remarks there and we're happy to talk. Question. John. John, tell me. The number of the main cases, the main cases, has been going on for the first time. Is there any indication why that's been happening? I would say simple explanation would be increased use of the internet. So, increased range of potential infringers and that if you work on the basis that a certain percentage of human behaviour is deviant and the more the behaviour there is of behaviour, the more cases there will be. Do you assess 71 cases? 71, yes. But there's not 71 in this list because they have not all yet been processed. Crystal Clear. How do you explain the difference between the home share addiction, the work of the home share addiction and for you? Well, if you're trying to manage a dispute, the legal part of a dispute, and you're doing that in your home city, obviously your transportation costs and your, you know, and possibly language interpretation costs and your assistance costs and so on are going to be reduced compared to doing it elsewhere. Can you just say again the difference between the abjector and the applicant who's on the side of this 71? I can be confused. Yes, sure. The abjector is the person, the trademark owner and the applicant is the person who has applied for the new domain. OK. Who wants the new domain? So, basically, Amazon has stated its claim for a lot of these new domains and it seems to be a repeat offender. Well, there's no judgements yet, so I wouldn't say it's a repeat offender. But yes, there is a claim against them in the couple, there is, as you see. But I think it's interesting to look through this because you can see that this gets complex, you know, blue, for example. That's the blue cross is abjecting. Pinterest is abjecting to .pin. The US Postal Service is abjecting to .mail.com, it's a good one, .KOM. And the abjector is Verizon. That's some of the objective for, in fact, the applicants themselves. Yeah, that's what I see that, yeah. So, the first question, what is the status, what is the outcome of the listed cases? The listed cases, the director general mentioned, really are a sample, basically to give a public impression of the types of applicants, in this case, complainants and the types of domain names, trademarks that are involved in the cases. So, they are a sample among, you know, the total number of cases. And if you would like to know the precise status of cases involving that particular complainant or trademark, we have, and Samarwi, we always make that available, of course, we can do that right away. We have on our website a search facility on the website of WIPO and then the section under the WIPO Arbitration Mediation Centre, where you can just key in the name of, as you can, for example, quote from this attached list, the name of the trademark owner. And in that case, you will find everything about that case, you'll find the outcome of the case, but you'll also find the decision itself. So, you can also read the considerations by the, from the panellists that actually decided the case. So, for each one of those, it is entirely possible to find out what the outcome is specifically. If you'd like to also know about cases beyond this year or rather before 2012, the same search facility allows you to look at all of this data over time. So, you can select your time period, you can do it from the beginning of the UDRP, or you can take an interval, or you can compare it between the last two years, however you like. In terms of the geographical distribution, here we, again, this is based on a search facility which we make available, where you can also make your selections on the side of the complainants, on the side of the respondents, or on the side of particular countries as well. If you do it on the side of particular countries, you will find the evolution over time. So, and to the extent that the stats still don't answer all the questions, our facility, which is real-time connected to our database of cases, then please, you know, just give us a ring today, anytime, an email, and we can get you the information more specifically. With some distance, I can say that traditionally the United States has been, and continues to be the largest, let's say, location of trademark owners filing cases, and also the largest location of respondent parties, owners of the main names, let us say, who are being implicated in these cases. However, there is an evolution there, and the evolution, I think, the evolution really, again, connects to the use of the internet. The use of the internet is, let's say, relatively speaking, probably moving east from here. Asia, China, Southeast Asia, the emerging economies, they are all becoming bigger players on the internet, including in domain registrations, both internationally and international domains, and I think that over time one can also see that back in the statistics, but not only on the respondent side, but also on the complainant side, where trademark owners from those jurisdictions are also becoming more involved. On annex six, you know, a very crude, if I may say, way of looking at this, on the left-hand side, the goodies on the right-hand side, the baddies, you know. The ranking for the top 25 is an annex six. If you'd like to have it in full, so if you are, for example, wondering about the particular jurisdiction on the complainant order respondent side beyond the top 25 that we have listed for 2012, you'll find that precisely in the statistics page, so you can go down to the last country, so to speak, involved with the most minimal amount of cases, and you can also find the geographical distribution over time in that way. We've just singled out the top 25 because we think that those are probably telling the story of registrations and infringement in a more significant way than if we go down to 120 names. Can you just say how long China has been at the 500 level? China has been moving up. If you go back to, for example, our press releases, but also our database today over, let's say, the last five years, then you will see that China has been entering steadily into the top 10 and then a little bit up within the top 10, as you can see. I think, again, what if you set that off, for example, against registrations in the national domain of China.cn, you'll find that that has become one of the largest, I do not know the exact statistic today, but that has also, likewise, broken into the top ranks, surely in the top 10 of all domains, including the international domains. So that's, I think, telling us that squatting in such a location is not necessarily just a question of people changing their mind and starting to enter into this behaviour, but it's also a function of electronic commerce becoming more and more prevalent in such jurisdictions or in such locations, I should say. But also, it's obviously in the US, a lot of these cases can be from the US to the US, right, because the US is top of the table in both, but China is nowhere, it's 23rd on the complainant, so as a goodie, it only ranks, it's got nine cases and as a baddie, it's got 500, so it's obviously international for China. Yes, it's probably too, let's say, a little bit too easy to presume that if the US is more or less 50% on both counts of this equation, then that is quite against one another, but you're absolutely right that the chances of it being US-US, for example, or the case staying, let's say, in western locations is larger than in the case of China. However, if we can maybe, you know, zoom out from these dispute statistics, and Baipa is also a director general, as of course also, as you know, been putting out information about, for example, the Madrid statistics, the Madrid system for trademarks. And if you combine all of these things, then I think it's quite likely that you're going to be seeing Chinese trademarks coming up on the complainant side in these disputes as well. There is just a certain lag time, but if the registration numbers that we see in Baipa are any indication, then the east, if I may put it like this, the far east, southeast Asia, are very likely to be the ones moving up also on the left side of the table over time. I should have said alleged goodie and alleged baddie. Good. Thank you very much.