Editor’s note:  Flip Petillion of Janson Baugniet  (Brussels) co-chairs, with Lorne Byatt of  Morton Fraser (Edinburgh), the Interlaw  European IP/IT Special Business Team and  edits the EU IP/IT Newsletter, scheduled to  launch this year. This is one article that will  appear in the inaugural issue.

Says Flip,  “It is now several years ago that I advised  on one of the first gTLD recovery cases.  At that time—it was mid-nineties of the  previous century —the future of domain  name recovery procedures was quite  unpredictable. ADR was not in place yet.  But it was fun to be on a green playing  field. I had the privilege of rendering the  first ADR decision in Belgium.  Now, many years later, it is safe to say  that domain names have acquired a full-fledged  status within intellectual property  rights, next to trademarks, copyrights,  patents, etc. In the early days, some smart  guys thought they could hijack domain  names and squat. The corporations would  normally have expected to register those  domain names. Now, cyber squatting has  become less ‘popular’ and in some cases,  domain names are the focus of real battles  between multinationals with conflicting  geographical interests.” The newsletter  will draw from the expertise of IP/IT  Interlawyers throughout Europe/Middle  East/Africa region.  You may subscribe to the Interlaw  EU IP/IT newsletter by contacting  Mr. Petillion directly, fp@janson.be.