Procedural Peculiarities of Domain Disputes' Litigation in the Russian Federation

This graduate paper is aimed at considering the procedural peculiarities of domain disputes in the Russian Federation. The main tasks of this paper are: a) analysis of the legal regime of means of individualization and domain names; b) defining of the category “domain disputes” and its specificity; c) identification of procedural peculiarities that are determined by this category of disputes; d) research of alternative methods for solving domain disputes. Based on this research the following conclusions were made: firstly, nowadays the proper legal (material and procedural) mechanisms of regulation of using the domain names are still absent; secondly, the category “domain names” is not clearly defined in Russian legislation and legal precedents: proper definition of these type of disputes and the problem of existence of distinctions various kind of disputes; thirdly, under the disputants are understood the right-holder and the registrant. Also, the registrar must be involved as a intervener with one of the litigants. According to legal precedents, the determination of the jurisdiction is the most common problem for this type of disputes. For this reason, the power of the Court on Intellectual Rights must be expanded, vest it authority to treat domain disputes as a court of the first instance in order to eliminate contradictions between courts of general jurisdictions and commercial courts. The plaintiff should be prepared in advance to the unfair using of his designation as well as to prove his right to use it. There are contradictions between legislation and acts that are passed by Coordination Center of the National Domain Name applicable to the imposition of pretrial provisions measures. The pretrial procedures for domain names disputes resolution have not been adopted in the Russian Federation yet.