WIPO charges $1,500 to hear a small UDRP domain dispute

The workload

When a UDRP complaint under the policy documented separately in this batch is filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the largest ICANN-approved provider, the complainant does the drafting and filing; the registrant's workload is answering within the deadline the provider's supplemental rules set, or the case proceeds to a panel on the complaint alone. WIPO's own domain name dispute page describes the service as addressing situations where a brand is misused to deceive consumers online, and links to a public case search and published fee schedule rather than a paywalled or member-only system.

What the documents show

WIPO's own schedule of fees under the UDRP, in effect, by its own title, as of December 1, 2002, states, verified, that a single-panelist case covering one to five domain names costs $1,500, split into a $1,000 panelist fee and a $500 fee retained by the WIPO Center. The schedule prices six to ten domains at $2,000, and cases over ten domains through consultation rather than a fixed figure. A three-member panel instead of one raises the one-to-five-domain fee to $4,000. WIPO also documents a Legal Index of UDRP Panel Decisions, a free, searchable record of how past panels applied the three-element test; a separate statistics page did not return a consolidated case count on the date this entry was retrieved, so no aggregate win-rate figure is stated here.

The operating cost

The filing fee, paid by the complainant, is the one figure the schedule states outright: $1,500 for the most common dispute shape, a single panelist deciding one to five domains, current as of a schedule dated December 2002 and unchanged as retrieved 16 September 2026. That fee excludes either side's own time or any legal counsel, costs the schedule does not set since it does not require a party to use an attorney at all.

The stop condition

WIPO's fee is paid once, at filing, and is non-refundable regardless of outcome; the obligation ends when the panel decides and, if the registrant loses, when the registrar implements the transfer or cancellation the policy describes. For a registrant, the practical stop condition for the underlying risk is preventive rather than procedural, stated only by implication: a name chosen and used in a way that does not read as targeting someone else's trademark is what the Legal Index shows panels look for across the three-element test, though WIPO's page does not state this as a formal safe harbor.

• Would a WIPO panel likely find the domain confusingly similar to an existing trademark in the same or a related market?
• Is a genuine, demonstrable use of the domain in place, the kind of legitimate interest the Legal Index shows panels crediting?
• If a complaint arrives, does the case involve enough domain names to justify requesting a three-member panel over the cheaper single panelist?

WIPO's own fee table and case index are the primary record of how the ICANN policy is applied in practice at the largest forum that hears these disputes; neither predicts the outcome of any specific case, and this entry does not name one.