Confusion over intellectual property ownership of domain names could increase unless the internet's governing body resolves language issues, according to a new report.

According to a report by a working group of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the number of non-English internet users is fast reaching 50%, with a majority of individuals from China, Japan and the Arab region not being able to read the Latin alphabet.

The lack of a unified system for the registration, use and litigation of internationalized domain names – domain names in a different language or character set than English – also affects Western intellectual property owners, leaving them at a loss to check the registration of their marks by owners in non-English scripts, such as Chinese or Arabic.

This could result in some domain names having more than one owner, said Charles Sha'ban, chairman of the ICANN group compiling the latest international domain names report, with no system yet in place to control such registrations.

"The main aim was to see how implementing the internationalized domain names will affect IP holders since we are all already facing cybersquatting and so far the domain names are only in English," said Sha'ban, who is also the executive director at IP firm Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property.

Sha'ban predicted that Asian users will become key internet players. He claimed that Chinese users could make up 50% of the internet in the next five years. The language of the internet and domain names will have to reflect this change.

But the system is not yet ready for the linguistic change, says the latest report, which highlights some of the legal difficulties that hinder the creation of a multilingual internet. There is no common standard to prevent cybersquatting, resolve domain name disputes, negotiate new domains and create a search database.

"Having domain names available in more languages will require tighter dispute resolution procedures, since it is expected that more legal issues will arise from translation and transliterations," says the report. The report urges ICANN to re-assess the existing dispute resolution system (UDRP) and introduce clearer rules for multilingual domain and trade mark disputes under the existing system.

The report suggests applying the same international laws covering translated and transliterated trade marks to multilingual domain name disputes even though their capacity can only be tested at a later stage.

Given the multicultural and multilingual nature of internationalized domain names, the report also highlights the difficulty of creating a common search database. Comparing foreign characters from one database to another will cause technical difficulties and give rise to confusion for English-speaking registrars.

Following its proposals in 2000 to turn the internet into a more accessible medium for users who do not use the Latin character set, ICANN released a set of common guidelines in June this year to be followed by registries taking care of international domain names.

Though the standards for internationalized domain names have not been finalized, technologies are already in place and a number of registries have taken in registrations for the new domain names.

While the registry for .org recently decided to stop taking in new registrations until a final system is put in place, the .com and .net registry could already start offering internationalized domain names ending in IDN.com and IDN.net under the ICANN guidelines said Sha'ban.

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