Step-by-step: use mediation before a .it domain decision

Step-by-step: use mediation before a .it domain decision. UDRP and ccTLD domain recovery and defense across .it. Email the firm to assess your case.

A brand owner finds its Italian trademark registered as a .it domain by a stranger — pointing at a competitor's site, a parking page, or nothing at all. The instinct is to file a complaint immediately. Under the Italian Registry's Reassignment procedure, however, a mandatory attempt at settlement comes first, and mishandling that step can cost weeks, damage your evidence record, and occasionally tip a winnable case toward the respondent.

The .it Reassignment procedure, administered by the Registro .it (the Registry), requires the parties to attempt mediation before an expert reaches a decision on the merits. That mediation window is short — typically a matter of days — and non-participatory conduct by either side carries tactical consequences. The filing fee is modest compared with a WIPO UDRP complaint at USD 1,500, but the legal test, the evidence logic, and the cross-border eligibility rules differ in material ways from the UDRP framework that governs .com disputes.

This guide walks each step of the .it Reassignment procedure in sequence, identifies the trap hidden in each one, and compares the route with the alternatives available when a .it dispute also involves a .com or a broader European zone.

What governs .it domain disputes — and how does it differ from the UDRP?

The .it Reassignment procedure is the governing national mechanism for resolving disputes over .it domain names. It is administered by Registro .it, Italy's national Registry, and applies to any .it domain alleged to have been registered or used in a way that infringes another party's rights. The procedure does not derive from the UDRP. Italy did not adopt the UDRP for .it. Understanding that distinction is the first step, because practitioners who approach a .it dispute with a UDRP mindset routinely underestimate two differences that change the outcome.

First, the legal test for .it is rooted in Italian and EU intellectual property law, not purely in the three-element UDRP test. The complainant — called the "claimant" in the Italian procedure — must show rights (a trademark, a company name, or another protected identifier) and demonstrate that the domain registration interferes with those rights. The bad-faith cumulative requirement ("registered AND used") from UDRP Paragraph 4(a)(iii) does not map directly. Italian procedure can engage even where use is not yet established, provided the registration itself is abusive.

Second, the procedure is structured in two stages: a mandatory mediation phase followed, if mediation fails, by an expert decision on the merits. The UDRP has no mediation stage. Treating the .it mediation as a procedural formality is the single most common mistake we see in cases referred to us mid-procedure.

Who may file? Any natural or legal person who holds a right recognized under Italian or EU law over a sign identical or similar to the disputed .it domain. There is no territorial residence requirement for claimants, but EU or international trademark rights must be properly established in the filing. A US brand owner with a Madrid Protocol registration covering Italy can file — but must demonstrate that coverage and its priority date clearly in the initial submission.

Step 1 — Assess eligibility and map your rights before you file

The first step is confirming that your rights qualify and that the domain is actually within the .it system's jurisdiction. This sounds obvious. In practice, it generates the most avoidable errors.

Check the following before drafting a single line of the complaint:

• Trademark registration: Do you hold a national Italian, EU, or internationally registered mark (via Madrid) covering Italy? If your only right is a US federal trademark with no EU designation, you will need to argue acquired distinctiveness or another recognized right under Italian law — harder to establish and fact-intensive.
• Company or trade name: Italian law recognizes company names and trade names as protected identifiers. If your trademark application is still pending, a well-documented trade name may be your primary right. Document the first use date carefully.
• Domain registration date vs. your rights: If the domain was registered before your trademark priority date, the claimant-side case becomes significantly harder. This is not automatically fatal — rights can pre-date formal registration — but the evidence burden shifts.
• Current domain use: Is the domain actively pointing anywhere? A domain parked on a pay-per-click page generates stronger bad-faith evidence than a passively held domain. Passive holding is recognized under Italian procedure, but the inference is not automatic.

The trap in Step 1: claimants who skip this audit and file on trademark instinct alone discover at the mediation stage — or worse, at the expert decision stage — that their rights documentation is incomplete. By then, the respondent has had notice of the dispute and time to build a counter-narrative.

Step 2 — Prepare and file the Reassignment complaint

Once eligibility is confirmed, the complaint is drafted and submitted through the Registro .it online portal. The submission must identify the claimant, describe the right relied upon, identify the domain, and state the remedy sought — reassignment to the claimant, or cancellation. Unlike the UDRP, where cancellation is a default fallback, in the .it procedure the choice of remedy has tactical weight: requesting reassignment when you are not eligible to hold a .it domain (because you lack an Italian or EU presence in some form) creates an early vulnerability.

The filing triggers formal commencement. Registro .it notifies the domain holder — the respondent — and the mediation clock begins. The respondent receives notice at the administrative contact address on record. If that address is outdated, notification issues arise, but they do not indefinitely toll the procedure. Registro .it has established rules for notification when a registrant is unreachable.

The trap in Step 2: the complaint is not a private document at this stage. Filing gives the respondent early warning. A respondent who has been informally approached, who knows a dispute is likely, and who receives formal notice may quickly update WHOIS data, transfer the domain to a related party, or — in cases involving domain investors — activate a previously dormant site to create the appearance of legitimate use. Lock your evidence before you file. Capture screenshots, WHOIS records, and reverse IP data the day before submission, not after.

For a read on whether your .it rights and evidence are sufficient to proceed, reach us at info@cognomenlaw.com.

Step 3 — Use mediation before a .it domain decision is reached

The mediation phase is the structural core of the .it procedure and the element most different from any other ccTLD mechanism in common use. The parties are brought together — usually through an accredited mediator on Registro .it's panel — to attempt a negotiated resolution. Participation is mandatory in the sense that a party who fails to engage without explanation may face adverse inference at the expert stage.

What does mediation involve in practice? The mediator does not decide the case. The mediator facilitates communication between the parties, attempts to identify a settlement (which might be a sale, a licensing arrangement, or a consent to transfer), and formally records whether settlement was reached or not. The mediator's role is procedurally neutral. Neither side's statements in mediation are admissible as evidence in the subsequent expert phase — a protection that, in theory, encourages candor.

Why does this matter tactically? Because the way you conduct yourself in mediation communicates your confidence in the merits. Claimants who make unreasonable demands in mediation — demanding not just the domain but compensation for prior use, for example — give the respondent rhetorical material for the expert phase. Conversely, respondents who refuse to engage entirely signal that they have no legitimate counter to offer, which a competent expert will note.

In our practice, we consistently advise clients to treat the mediation as a genuine settlement opportunity when the respondent has arguable facts — and as an evidence-gathering exercise when they do not. The distinction drives the brief we prepare for mediation.

The trap in Step 3: clients who regard mediation as a box-ticking exercise sometimes authorize their counsel to offer too much too early. A concession made in mediation — even if theoretically confidential — shapes the parties' subsequent posture. Mediation in .it proceedings is short. Prepare a clear instruction set for your representative before the session opens, and decide in advance the point at which you will walk away and proceed to the expert phase.

Step 4 — Submit evidence for the expert phase if mediation fails

When mediation does not produce a settlement, the procedure advances to the expert decision. An expert is appointed from Registro .it's accredited panel. The expert reviews the submissions, the complaint, and any response filed by the domain holder, and issues a written decision.

The evidence that decides .it cases at the expert stage maps onto three questions:

1. Do you hold a qualifying right? Trademark certificates, Madrid registration printouts with Italian/EU territorial coverage, company registration records, and evidence of trade name use all belong here. Dates of first use matter. The certificate alone is often not enough — expert decisions have turned on the absence of evidence showing the mark was in use at the time of domain registration.
2. Is the domain identical or confusingly similar to that right? This is rarely the contested issue when the domain is an exact match. Where the domain adds a geographic term, a descriptive word, or a deliberate typo, the similarity analysis requires argument. Panels — and .it experts — consistently hold that the addition of generic terms does not dispel confusion when the dominant element is the protected mark.
3. Was the registration or use abusive? This is where .it cases are won or lost. Evidence of abusive registration or use includes: pay-per-click monetization on competitors' brands; a prior pattern of cybersquatting by the same registrant across other zones; direct approach to the claimant demanding payment; and the absence of any plausible good-faith explanation for choosing that precise domain string.

What about the respondent's side? A domain investor who registered the .it before the claimant's trademark priority date, who has consistently used it for a relevant and non-infringing purpose, and who can document that history, has a strong expert-phase defense. We regularly advise registrants in that position, and the evidence standard for a viable defense is the same as for a viable attack — contemporaneous, dated, and tied to the domain string itself.

In one matter we handled (a .it domain, spring 2025), a claimant's expert-phase filing omitted the Italian trademark certificate entirely and relied solely on an EU registration that was filed after the domain's registration date. The expert declined to order reassignment. The case turned entirely on that evidentiary gap — not on the merits of the claimant's underlying brand position.

The trap in Step 4: respondents who did not engage at the mediation stage sometimes assume they have no obligation at the expert phase either. Default does not guarantee the claimant wins — the expert must still assess the merits — but defaulting eliminates the respondent's ability to put on any evidence or argument. In a close case, default is the difference between holding the domain and losing it.

Step 5 — Respond to the expert decision and consider the next step

The expert issues a written decision stating whether the domain is to be reassigned to the claimant, cancelled, or left with the registrant. Registro .it implements the decision after a short suspension period that allows the losing party to initiate court proceedings if they choose to challenge the outcome.

Can the decision be appealed? The .it Reassignment procedure does not have an internal appellate panel comparable to Nominet's three-expert appeal in the DRS. The formal recourse is the Italian courts. A party who loses at the expert phase and believes the decision was procedurally or substantively wrong can seek interim measures in court — an injunction against implementation — but must act quickly. The implementation suspension window is short, and Italian courts require substantive grounds, not mere dissatisfaction with the outcome.

This is a structural difference from the UDRP, where court action is also the only appeal route but where the implemention timeline gives slightly more breathing room in practice. For any court challenge to a .it expert decision, COGNOMEN works with local litigation counsel in the relevant jurisdiction — Italian IP litigation is a specialized practice, and the courts that hear these matters are concentrated in the major commercial centers.

What if the domain also has a .com registered by the same holder? A successful .it reassignment does not automatically reach the .com. That requires a separate UDRP complaint before WIPO or the Forum. The two procedures run independently. We frequently advise brand owners to assess both zones before filing either, because the evidentiary record built for the .it procedure is directly usable — and should be structured with that dual-filing in mind from the outset.

How does the .it procedure compare with the UDRP for .com?

The right route depends on the zone and the specific facts. When the domain is a .com, the UDRP at WIPO or the Forum is the standard path: the WIPO filing fee starts at USD 1,500 for a single-member panel, the case typically resolves in about two months, and the UDRP's three-element test under Paragraph 4(a) is the most extensively documented dispute standard in the world, with over 80,000 cases decided at WIPO alone over 25 years.

When the domain is a .it, the UDRP does not apply. The Reassignment procedure applies, with the mandatory mediation stage, a different legal test, and Italian and EU rights as the qualifying criteria. Timelines under Registro .it's procedure vary and should be verified against the Registry's current published rules — do not assume they mirror WIPO's two-month average.

What if the dispute spans both zones? A brand owner who faces a .com and a .it registered by the same holder has two concurrent options: file a UDRP complaint for the .com and a Reassignment complaint for the .it. The two procedures are independent; a win in one does not bind the other. However, a decision in one zone — particularly a finding of bad faith or, conversely, a finding of legitimate interest — may be cited as persuasive, if not binding, context by the decision-maker in the other. Sequencing matters. We advise filing the stronger case first where the same evidence record supports both.

When should court action be considered instead? If the registrant is operating a commercial site that is actively diverting Italian consumers, if damages are needed and not merely domain transfer, or if the expert decision is challenged, Italian court proceedings become necessary. Court anticybersquatting litigation is substantially more expensive and slower than the administrative route, but it is the only route that reaches financial remedies. COGNOMEN coordinates that work with local litigation counsel in Italy.

To weigh the .it Reassignment procedure against a UDRP or court action for your case, email info@cognomenlaw.com.

Respondent-side considerations: when is the .it mediation an opportunity, not a threat?

Not every .it Reassignment complaint is a legitimate one. We regularly advise registrants — domain investors and independent registrants — who receive Reassignment complaints where the claimant's rights are thin, pre-dated by the domain registration, or simply inapplicable under the Italian test.

The mediation stage, specifically, creates an opportunity for a well-advised respondent. A respondent who engages constructively in mediation — offering, for example, a time-limited license or a fair-market sale at a price the claimant can evaluate — often resolves the matter faster and on better terms than waiting for an expert decision that might go either way. Conversely, a respondent with strong legitimate-interest evidence sometimes finds that presenting that evidence clearly at mediation causes the claimant to withdraw the complaint before the expert is even appointed.

What does a strong respondent defense look like? It requires: evidence that the domain was registered before the claimant's rights arose, or for a purpose unconnected to the claimant's mark; a contemporaneous record of that purpose (emails, development notes, business plans, invoices); and — if the domain is being monetized — evidence that the monetization does not target the claimant's brand specifically. In a second matter we handled (a .it domain held by an independent investor, summer 2024), we demonstrated at the expert phase that the claimant's EU trademark was filed two years after our client's domain registration. The expert declined the reassignment request. The respondent retained the domain.

The Italian procedure also recognizes — implicitly, through its reference to Italian IP principles — that a finding of unfounded complaint can carry reputational weight for the claimant. While the .it Reassignment procedure does not formally designate Reverse Domain Name Hijacking findings the way the UDRP does under its own rules, the expert's written decision is public, and a decision that identifies a claimant's rights as insufficient or its complaint as opportunistic is a meaningful outcome for the respondent.

Related at COGNOMEN

• ccTLD dispute services: .uk, .eu, .de, .it, and national procedures worldwide
• How to handle a .ae domain dispute: the national procedure step by step
• Case study: defending a .it investment domain against a Reassignment complaint