Prevent Cybersquatting

Between 1976 and 1980, I was working in Housing Department's Squatter Control Unit in the Yuen Long District. I detected illegal structures, sought senior's approval and headed a team to demolish them, often without Police escort. Whenever I patrolled my area alone, I had a big umbrella with me to ward off the dogs and possible ambushes!

Between 1992 and 1997, I was a United Kingdom delegate to the World Intellectual Property Organization's law-making process. The visionary international community was deliberating on the impact of digital technology on copyright. As digitization's impact on trade names, I wrote about cybersquatting before the turn of the century.

Since April 2018, I have become a panelist of the Asian Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre (ADNDRC). So far, I have done two e-hearings and issued one ".cn" decision (DCN-1800821) and one ".com" decision (HK-1801107). The brand owners detected the cybersquatting and the respective gTLD Registrars enforce my determinations.

At the HKU law library today, I noticed a thick book about domain name law and practice. I knew I did not need to read the international handbook as I got the digitized materials in cyberspace. Anyway, I am speaking in an international conference in Shanghai on July 20, 2018, recommending deploying the gTLD ".商标" to prevent cybersquatting!