WIPO Magazine, Issue No. 2, 2002

2WIPO Magazine/February 2002DEVELOPMENTS INMULTILINGUALDOMAIN NAMESA symposium organized jointly bythe International TelecommunicationUnion (ITU) and WIPO in associationwith the MultilingualInternet Names Consortium (MINC)reviewed the technical, legal andpolicy issues relating to enlargementof the domain name space tosupport scripts of languages usingnon-Latin characters. Meeting inGeneva in December, symposiumparticipants – drawn from theInternet and legal communities, aswell as policy-makers and governmentrepresentatives – also discussedthe intellectual propertyimplications of such developments.Estimates indicate that by 2003two-thirds of all Internet users willbe non-English speakers; however,a significant barrier remains formany of these potential users asInternet domain names are in a restrictedset of Latin characters, mostcommonly used to write English.“Native speakers of Arabic, Chinese,Japanese, Korean, Tamil, Thaiand other languages are at a disadvantage,”said ITU Deputy Secretary-GeneralRoberto Blois. “Theglobal nature of the Internet makesinternational dialogue critical if auniversal solution to the problem isto be found.”WIPO Assistant Director GeneralFrancis Gurry further emphasizedthis point. “Equality of access to thevaluable resources provided by theInternet is an issue of critical importanceto the international community,”he said, “and is a key concernfor international intergovernmentalorganizations, such as ITUand WIPO.” Mr. Gurry noted thatwhile expansion of the domainname space means greater opportunitiesfor legitimate users, it alsoopens up new opportunities forcybersquatters. “We are keen onensuring that the expansion doesnot happen at the expense of anyone party,” he said.Problems Faced in aMultilingual SystemThe Domain Name System (DNS)serves to facilitate users’ ability tonavigate the Internet by mappingthe user-friendly domain name toits corresponding numeric InternetProtocol address. A domain nameregistration, whether in a generictop-level domain (gTLD) or a countrycode top-level domain (ccTLD),provides a global presence whichensures that the correspondingonline address is accessible onlinefrom anywhere. Some 100 millionsuch names are already stored inthe DNS, according to industry estimates.While the process of “internationalization”of the Internet’s DNS isunderway, a number of problemsneed to be overcome to ensure thatall linguistic systems are fairly representedon the Internet. The challengesare complex and go far beyondtechnical considerations.These include:wwwwwadministrative arrangements formultilingual domains,competition policy,market access,intellectual property and disputeresolution mechanisms,cultural and social issues.