Zahid,
thanks for your continued hard work on these issues.
The
GPML is dead. It would have provided extremely narrow protection
anyway. It probably would have constituted a ‘prior restraint’ in
violation of US law, and probably would have ended up with lawsuits to that
effect. I think that a mandatory Clearinghouse, including mandatory IP
Claims service, coupled with a mandatory URS, would effectively solve the
problem of defensive registrations. And in any event the proposed GPML
would only have slightly assisted a few of the most famous TM owners with that
problem.
TM
Clearinghouse – the “Claims” service must be mandatory. There is no
reason to make it optional. It should be renamed the “Notice”
service. Every domain reg application must be checked against the
database, and if a match then a notice goes out as specified in the proposal.
I agree we should try to broaden the range of ‘hits’ that would cause a notice,
since it is only a notice and there is no ability to block a
registration. Notice of typosquats is the largest purpose behind this
concept.
URS
– must be mandatory. There is no reason to make it optional. I
agree with Sarah and others that it must permit transfer if elected by the TM
owner, and not just suspension and eventual release into the pool. I am
also sensitive to the ‘due process’ arguments, so thought we should look for
some middle ground. I had he idea that the domains could be suspended for
three months after the URS decision, and if no appeal than the TM owner could
elect transfer at that point. That should alleviate the due process
concerns somewhat, particularly if another notice of the decision is sent every
month in the meanwhile. I had a discussion with some of the IRT members
last night, and they thought this idea was workable. How do BC
members feel of that option?
Mike
Rodenbaugh
RODENBAUGH
LAW
548
Market Street
San
Francisco, CA 94104
From: owner-bc-gnso@icann.org
[mailto:owner-bc-gnso@icann.org] On Behalf Of Zahid Jamil
Sent: Monday, October 26, 2009 9:50 AM
To: 'bc - GNSO list'
Subject: [Bulk] [bc-gnso] IMPORTANT - Decision BC has to make on new
gTLD TM issues
Importance: High
Dear All,
Have spent a good 3 hours discussing these
issues with the far right on the Non-Commercial SG (will update in the BC
meeting tomorrow).
In the meantime, as promised in the Huddle
here is, a short brief to help with discussion on BC strategy in tomorrow’s meeting:
Not part of the GNSO work requested in the
Board letter:
1.
GPML:
This has been
rejected by the Board and so the Board has not sent this to the GNSO for any
consensus. There has been much opposition within the ICANN community to
this and was the main target of criticism. It seems there also may be
some opposition from the GAC. However, this leaves open the problem of
defensive registration. BC has to decide what its position is to be going
forward. This would not be an issue we need to decide on with respect to
the GNSO working group to work on URSS and IP Clearing House as this is not
part of the work assigned by the Board to the GNSO in its letter. But a
general position in this regard to be communicated so that the Board is aware
of our view may be an idea.
2.
Post Delegation:
This too has not
been sent by the Board to the GNSO for any work on reaching consensus. It
is currently open for public comment and the BC can make comments in this
regard. The Post Delegation is not in line with the IRT Report (many
reasons mentioned in earlier posts so will not repeat here). The Staff
Proposal would put the interests of both TM holders and Communities at risk
since once the delegation is made they would not have any recourse or rights to
institute Post Delegation Disputes under this policy based on:
·
breach of representations in
the gTLD application
·
breach of Registry Agreements
·
systemic breach of TMs in the
gTLD as a result of omissions or lacunas in Registry Operations or where the
Registry can simply turn ‘a blind eye’ to the infringements
This is what the
Post Delegation was initially designed for and so not having this in the Staff
proposal makes the Solution effectively irrelevant.
The BC needs to decide
on its response to the Staff Proposal for posting of comments
Work Board has asked GNSO to work/decide
on:
1.
IP Clearing House
Staff
Proposal is not as problematic as other proposals. There are a few
important issues though. Here the object of the IRT was to allow IP
Rights holders to voluntarily sign up their IP rights (not just TM) with a
centralised database (Clearing house to validate rights). It would be
mandatory for New gTLD Registries Operators to connect with the Clearing house.
In case of a Sunrise the New gTLD Operator would have to provide a Sunrise
registration process verified by Clearinghouse data, and incorporates a Sunrise
Dispute Resolution Policy (SDRP). In case of a Claims Service, if a
registrant applies for a domain name matches with a TM ‘identical’ to one in
the IP Clearing house this will prompt a notification to the registrant of the
TM and require registrant to make warranties as to the domain name being
registered.
IRT had
recommended that ‘identical match’ mean:
In this
regard: (a) spaces contained within a trademark that are replaced by hyphens
(and vice versa), (b) spaces, hyphens, punctuation or special characters
contained within a trademark that are spelt out with appropriate words
describing it (Including but not limited to ~ @ # ! § % ^ © and &.), and
(c) punctuation or special characters contained within a trademark that are
omitted or replaced by spaces or hyphens will be considered identical matches.
In the
Staff Proposal identical match’ means:
‘“identical”
is defined to mean that the domain name consists of the complete and identical
textual element of the trademark.’
As can be
seen the Staff definition of identical match is very narrow. BC needs to
decide whether to advocate IRT definition or also seek inclusion of
Typosquatting and/or extend match to visual, aural?
In the
Staff Proposal Pre‐registration complaint process in URS is not included. BC
needs to decide whether such pre-registration for use in URS is necessary.
Not clear
whether IP Clearing house connectivity with New gTLD Registry Operators is
mandatory or not.
2.
URS:
The Staff
proposal (different from the IRT) only recommends this as a ‘best practice’ and
not mandatory for a New gTLD. Staff suggest this is only an interim solution
“until and if policy development work in this area is undertaken by the GNSO
which may adopt this or a similar system for use by all registries”. The
link of the URS of pre-registration in the IP Clearing house have been
removed. The IRT had suggested a fee be imposed on registrant to file an
answer if more than 26 domains are at issue. Staff Proposal removes this
requirement. Notification under IRT of URS was supposed to be by
email. Staff Proposal includes the requirement of paper as well as fax
notification in addition to email. Only remedy: “that domain name shall
be suspended for the balance of the registration period. It will point to a
site with a standardized post stating that it was suspended as a result of a
URS proceeding. The Whois record shall be revised to reflect that the domain
name is on hold and cannot be transferred for the life of the
registration.” This may lead to the same domain name being put back into
the pool and snapped up by cybersquatters.
BC needs to
decide whether transfer of the domain name to the Complainant (for a fee and/or
other conditions) is to be advocated. Also should BC advocate this be a
mandatory and permanent Rights Protection Mechanism.
It may also be an
idea to advocate that all these RPMs be reviewed periodically. Once new
gTLDs are launched there will be more data to enable revisiting these RPMs for
improvement and possibly addressing problems not earlier foreseeable.
Getting late now so will post more if
necessary in morning.
Sincerely,
Zahid Jamil
Barrister-at-law
Jamil &
Jamil
Barristers-at-law
219-221 Central
Hotel Annexe
Merewether Road,
Karachi. Pakistan
Cell:
+923008238230
Tel: +92 21
5680760 / 5685276 / 5655025
Fax: +92 21
5655026
Notice /
Disclaimer
This message
contains confidential information and its contents are being communicated only
for the intended recipients . If you are not the intended recipient you should
not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender
immediately by e-mail if you have received this message by mistake and delete
it from your system. The contents above may contain/are the intellectual
property of Jamil & Jamil, Barristers-at-Law, and constitute privileged information
protected by attorney client privilege. The reproduction, publication, use,
amendment, modification of any kind whatsoever of any part or parts (including
photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means whether or not
transiently or incidentally or some other use of this communication) without
prior written permission and consent of Jamil & Jamil is prohibited.