Following is a message just sent to the Names Issues Working Group. It will also be sent to the At-Large list. If applicable for your region, you may forward it to your regional list as well. Input and comments welcome from all, but please note the tight timeline. Alan
To: name-issues@atlarge-lists.icann.org From: Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca> Subject: Status update on GNSI STI Progress - including draft proposals
I am attaching the current working "strawman" proposals for a Trademark Clearinghouse and a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) service associated with new gTLDs. PLEASE NOTE LAST PARAGRAPH.
For completeness I am including pointers to previous documents, all of which have substantially influenced what you see today and a description of the process which has been followed.
In June 2009, the final report of the IRT on trademark protection measures was issued. It can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/public-comment-200906.html#irt-report. Among the measures contained in the report were a Intellectual Property Clearinghouse to facilitate pre-launch handling of trademarks issues, and a URS process to address such issues after launch.
Based on a variety of consultations, ICANN staff were requested to formulate revised Clearinghouse and URS proposals. The specific proposals can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-proposed-procedure-tm-clearin... and http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-proposed-procedure-urs-04oct0.... Additional material including a comparison of these proposals and those in the IRT Report can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/gnso-consultations-reports-en.htm.
Following initial comments on the staff proposals, the ICANN Board requested that the GNSO review these proposals and (optimally) present a consensus view of how ICANN should proceed. In the absence of such consensus, staff and the Board would come to its own decision of how to proceed (factoring in any input received including non-consensus views from the GNSO). The letter requesting this input can be found at http://gnso.icann.org/correspondence/beckstrom-to-gnso-council-12oct09-en.pd....
The GNSO was given until 14 December 2009 to deliberate and deliver a report (2 months from receipt of the letter). During the Seoul ICANN meeting, a group was created to take on this task - the Selected Trademark Issues Review Team (STI-RT). The group includes two representatives from each of the Registry and Registrar Stakeholder Groups, four from each of the Commercial and Non-commercial Stakeholder Groups, one GNSO NomCom appointee, and one representative from At-Large. Several of these groups have Alternates who can participate in the absence of one of the prime delegates. I (Alan Greenberg) am the formal At-Large representative, and Olivier Crepin-Leblond is the Alternate.
It is important to remember that the question being asked is not whether a Clearinghouse or URS should be implemented, but rather how to best do it in light of conflicting needs of the various parties.
The STI-RT was asked to report back to the GNSO Council in time for its 23 November meeting. This target was viewed by some as being unreasonably tight, which proved to be correct.
To date, the STI-RT has met 9 times, once in Seoul, and two teleconferences in each week since Seoul (1 on the Clearinghouse, and 1 on the URS per week). In total, there have been about 14 hours of formal meetings and many informal and sub-group meetings. At this point, we have consensus on many but not all of the issues. To reach consensus, for each of the two themes, a number of critical issues and processes were identified. A "strawman" proposal was drafted for each (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man_proposal) and for the last two weeks, the STI-RT has been reviewing and adjusting this proposal, with the intent of finding some middle ground which meets the overall needs of all of the parties.
The current plan is to keep refining these proposals over the next week (4 teleconferences are scheduled) and to deliver a final proposal to the GNSO on 07 December 2009. There is some chance that this target may slip by a couple of days. This will give the GNSO Constituencies and At-Large a week (or perhaps a few days more) to review the proposal and to decide whether to ratify it during the GNSO Council meeting on 17 December 2009. The GNSO has been told that this slippage of three days from the original requested target is acceptable.
There is a possibility that if full consensus is not reached, but is felt that it is possible given more time, the report will be submitted on the above schedule, but a face-to-face meeting in early January may be scheduled to finalize it.
Current versions of the two strawman proposals are attached. They may be a bit cryptic, but reference to the documents mentioned above will explain much of this.
Since the ALAC, just as the GNSO Constituencies, will have just one week to support or not support the report to be issued on 07 December, these draft copies should be used to begin the evaluation on those items where consensus has been reached, and to provide any comments or advice on those items where common ground has not yet been reached.
Alan