ABSTRACT
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) domain name process was an ambitious and at least partly successful attempt to make rules about a public issue-the relationship between Internet domain names and intellectual property law-via a semiprivate process. It produced a lengthy and very readable report, which advanced the debate over the regulation of domain names (WIPO 1999a). The semi-private process leading up to that report had several novel features, and perhaps as a result was not well understood by the public or even key participants. Trailblazing is never easy The lessons learned from this experience might suggest that this particular trail is better treated as a dead end; if, however, the process is to be repeated, as seems all too likely lessons learned from this first run can improve any future attempts at a semi-private process.
