Summary

Japan Registry Services Co., Ltd. (JPRS) operates the .jp country-code top-level domain, but when a registrant's control of a domain is contested, the operative forum is not the registry — it is the JP Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (JP-DRP), the UDRP-based remedy administered before a dispute-resolution service provider approved by JPNIC. That procedure's governing instrument, the Rules for Procedure, was amended this year in a way that changes how the remedy is accessed without changing who can seek it or what it can deliver.

The revision was adopted by the JPNIC Board on 17 February 2026, published on 24 February 2026 and took effect on 1 April 2026 (JPNIC announcement) (JPRS notice). The revised document is JPNIC-01327, superseding JPNIC-01252, whose revision history runs from its first publication on 19 July 2000 through 17 February 2026 (the operative document). Under Article 21 of the Rules, amended rules must be published at least 30 calendar days before taking effect, which is why the 24 February publication precedes the 1 April effective date; the version of the Rules in force when a complaint is filed governs that proceeding (the operative document).

The amended rules make four changes. First, the electronic-transmission provisions (Articles 1(l), 1(m), 2(b), 2(d), 3(b) and 5(b)) were reorganised so that the complaint, response and documentary evidence may be submitted not only via online storage but also as email attachments to a designated address, a practical simplification building on the 2020 electronic-procedure revision (JPNIC announcement) (JIPAC notice). Second, registrant-information handling was clarified: where a complaint is filed and the registrant cannot be identified, the dispute-resolution provider now supplies the complainant with the relevant registrant contact details — a direct answer to anonymous registrations that WHOIS cannot resolve (Article 3(v)) (JPNIC announcement). Third, the requirement that a corporate representative-authority public certificate be issued within three months before filing was relaxed (Articles 3(xvi) and 5(x)), lowering documentary burden for corporate complainants (JPNIC announcement). Fourth, terminology was aligned so "registrant" may also be called "respondent", as under the UDRP (Article 1(b)) (JPNIC announcement).

JIPAC — the Japan Intellectual Property Arbitration Center, the approved provider for these proceedings — amended its own Supplementary Rules on the same timetable and published new complaint, response, power-of-attorney and settlement-summary forms for filings made on or after 1 April 2026 (JIPAC notice). A copy of the amended Rules hosted by JIPAC confirms the 17 February 2026 revision date and the 1 April 2026 implementation date (the 2026-04-01 Rules PDF), and JPNIC issued a confirmation notice when the revised rules entered into force (JPNIC effectiveness notice).

The surrounding architecture is unchanged. Under Article 3(a), any individual or organisation with an interest in the registered domain name may initiate a proceeding by filing a complaint with a JPNIC-approved provider (the Rules PDF). The complainant must plead all three elements of Policy Article 4.a — an identical or confusingly similar mark, no right or legitimate interest of the registrant, and registration or use in bad faith — and remedies remain limited to cancellation or transfer of the domain name; damages cannot be claimed (JPNIC's English description). A registrant dissatisfied with a decision may bring a court action within 10 days to defer its implementation (JPNIC's English description). JPRS itself published notice of the revision on 24 February 2026, deferring detail to JPNIC (JPRS notice).

One evidentiary boundary deserves note: this analysis rests on publisher announcements and the published rules text as indexed excerpts; the exact amended wording of individual articles was not read in full from the operative document, and Japanese-language material was translated for this briefing.