Thanks Margie and everyone else in the STI group, it was a monstrous effort in a ludicrously short timeframe. The BC Minority Statement is attached. Zahid and I believe it reflects the consensus of our membership, after active consultation with them throughout the STI process. However the document is out for comment within our Constituency, so may be modified and may not be a final version for up to three weeks, per the terms of our Charter. We do not object to nearly as many things as are reflected in the .pdf charts from Margie this morning, so hopefully they will be updated online at least. On those charts, our Minority Statement is relevant to sections 3, 4, 6.1, 7 and 10.1 re the Clearinghouse, and section 7.1 re the URS. We object to only two aspects of the Clearinghouse as it is devised within the STI Initial Report: 1) the breadth of data allowed into the Clearinghouse, and 2) required use of information within the Clearinghouse, beyond Sunrise Periods, to serve notices to registrants or would-be registrants that there is a potential trademark conflict related to their registration. We believe that businesses ought to get more benefit from the Clearinghouse, than merely the right to buy domain names during sunrise periods - which most do not want to do. We believe businesses should get more protection than the right to buy exact matches only of registered trademarks. If they wish to purchase other trademark names during sunrise, because they believe squatters otherwise will, then they should be allowed to do so (as in .asia, .tel and .eu launches, at least). Further, we believe that broadening the use of the Clearinghouse in these ways would be beneficial to everyone in the community insofar as pertinent information would be available, which could be used to notify registrants of potential domain name disputes at the point of sale, thereby avoiding a substantial percentage of those domain disputes. The ICANN community ought to demonstrate this commitment to avoiding these costly and frequent disputes. We object to only one failing of the URS as stated in the STI report -- that it would not provide successful complainants the option to have the clearly infringing domain name registration(s) transferred. We believe that, after all appeal timeframes have lapsed, the successful complainant will have demonstrated a clear and convincing burden of proof, and so should be allowed to put the formerly infringing domain names to beneficial use. We believe the absence of this remedy will result in underutilization of this process, and thus continued overutilization of the more expensive UDRP, in many more obvious cases of cybersquatting. At minimum, we believe some sort of feasibility study should be conducted before a decision is made to include it, or not, as an available remedy. We hope, at least, that these potential future modifications would be possible within a flexible design of these new systems, so they are not costly to add if the community later sees any wisdom in doing so. Thanks, Mike Rodenbaugh GNSO Councilor, Business Constituency Mike Rodenbaugh RODENBAUGH LAW 548 Market Street San Francisco, CA 94104 <http://service.ringcentral.com/ringme/callback.asp?mbid=57178438,0,&referer =http://rodenbaugh.com/contact> (415) 738-8087 <http://rodenbaugh.com/> http://rodenbaugh.com From: owner-gnso-sti@icann.org [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@icann.org] On Behalf Of Margie Milam Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 9:20 AM To: GNSO Council Cc: gnso sti Subject: [gnso-sti] Special Trademark Issues Work Team Report to the GNSO Council Importance: High Dear All, On behalf of David Maher, the Chair of the STI Work Team, I am pleased to forward the Report from the Special Trademark Issues Work Team describing recommendations for the GNSO Council to consider at its meeting on 17 December 2009. Please note that there are several minority reports that are currently under development, as referenced in Annex 4, that will be sent separately to the GNSO Council as they are completed. Best Regards, Margie Milam _________________ Margie Milam Senior Policy Counselor ICANN _________________