[gnso-udrp-dt] Recommendations from WIPO on Speakers

[Margie Milam <Margie.Milam@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear All,

I just received WIPO's response to my inquiry.   Please note that they took a 
different approach in making recommendations (focusing on quality rather than 
quantity) as reflected in the excerpts below from their response.

Best Regards,
Margie
___________

WIPO believes in quality of information and approach.  The success of the UDRP 
is all about substantive expert understanding.  At the 10-May-2011 webinar, 
WIPO will make a number of observations on the envisaged process and on the 
UDRP more generally.

On that basis, and for present purposes, we are pleased to submit as the WIPO 
Center's UDRP panelist recommendations, David Bernstein and Tony Willoughby.  
Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Willoughby are among the most respected and appointed of 
WIPO's 450 UDRP panelists.  With hundreds of WIPO UDRP decisions between them, 
each has authored an extensive body of carefully reasoned UDRP jurisprudence 
(whereby their recorded transfer rate incidentally ranks among the most 
conservative).  Mr. Bernstein and Mr. Willoughby have for many years been core 
faculty members for the annual WIPO Advanced Domain Name Workshop, and have 
heard there a wide range of views from counsel and filing parties (both 
complainants and respondents, in-house and outside).  They are eminently 
qualified to speak on any number of UDRP topics.

Both as an Attorney and Complainant, we would recommend Aimee Gessner, of BMW.  
Ms. Gessner is an Attorney-at-Law (New York, USA), and Solicitor (England and 
Wales), and serves as legal counsel for BMW, a brand owner that has filed 
numerous UDRP disputes with the WIPO Center over many years.  Ms. Gessner has 
also served as faculty for the WIPO Advanced Domain Name Workshop, and has 
extensive experience with the UDRP, and of its value and operation from those 
perspectives, and would be well-qualified to speak with authority on the 
subject.

We also understand that Paul McGrady and John Berryhill have been put forward 
by others as possible speakers.  For the WIPO Center's part, we can confirm 
that both have made numerous appearances as outside counsel in many WIPO UDRP 
cases, and have demonstrated experience and substantive knowledge of the UDRP.  
While they each will have their own vantage point, we believe both would be 
competent to speak on the subject from their relevant practitioner perspectives.