WIPO awards Switzerland domain names

The Federal Chancellery's years-long battle over the official domain names for Switzerland has come to an end: the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recognizes the Confederation's exclusive right to its Internet addresses. Unless the opposing party appeals against the decision of the official dispute resolution body within 20 days, the transfer of Schweiz.ch, Suisse.ch and Svizzera.ch will be carried out automatically, according to a communiqué. With this decision, WIPO recognizes the importance of the country names and also protects the rights of countries to their own names. A private individual is registered as the holder of the three domain names with the official domain registry Switch.