The South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law (SAIIPL) is one of the accrediteddispute resolution providers that adjudicate on co.za (SouthAfrican commercial Top Level Domain) domain name disputes.

Since June 2007 there have been 24 decisions, which seem to befairly consistent with the decisions from WIPO and the National Arbitration Forum. To viewthe decisions visit http://www.domaindisputes.co.za/content.php?tag=6.

There are currently more than 466 000 co.za domain names which areregistered on a "first come, first served" basis making it a prime"new" target for cybersquatters and typosquatters (domain nameprofiteers) to expand their business of online infringements. Seesome of the examples we found: http://www.facebook.co.za/(whois)and kawasaki.co.za(whois).

As the popular domain extensions become more saturated with domainname profiteers, the infringements will move to domain name marketssuch as co.za increasing the number of cases that will be broughtbefore the SAIIPL orsimilar dispute resolution providers.

A defensive domain name registration is the best option for trademark owners to ensure brand protection within the open andunrestricted TLDs.

To check the availability of your brand / trade mark search theco.za whois at http://www.lexsynergy.com/.