Hello Bruce, Thank you so much for this comprehensive and very informative answer; I was just not aware of the latest development (since Nov 2005) on this issue. Regards, Mawaki --- Bruce Tonkin <Bruce.Tonkin@melbourneit.com.au> wrote:
Hello Mawaki,
Maybe this is relevant only for those who were not in Wellington: could we have a couple of sentences as to why we're having item 3 on the agenda? thanks, Mawaki
Item 3 on the Agenda is a follow up to Item 4 of our Wellington meeting: http://www.gnso.icann.org/meetings/agenda-29mar06.shtml. This agenda item was in response to a request for discussion from Lucy Nichols of the IPC constituency.
More background material is available in the IPC constituency statement on new gTLDs: See Section 4(b) of: http://www.gnso.icann.org/issues/new-gtlds/ipc-01feb06.pdf
See also the webpage on "Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policies" at: http://www.icann.org/udrp/
The most relevant one is the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) available at: http://www.icann.org/dndr/udrp/policy.htm
As I understand it, the rationale for introducing the UDRP was that there are established laws for dealing with trademarks within nations, and that there are some treaties between nations around the topic of trademarks (ie Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property). A complainant can go to court to resolve a trademark dispute, but this process is considered to be expensive and time-consuming. The UDRP process was developed as an administrative proceeding to deal with the bad faith registration and use of trademarks as domain names. A court of law can still overturn a UDRP decision.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) which is an observer to the GAC, produced a report called the WIPO-II report, see:
http://arbiter.wipo.int/processes/process2/report/html/report.html#4
The mandate for the report was:
"On June 28, 2000, the Director General of WIPO received a request from 19 of WIPO's Member States to develop, through a consultative process, recommendations on means of dealing with the "bad faith, abusive, misleading or unfair use," within the Internet domain name system (DNS), of identifiers that form the basis of certain naming systems used in the real or non-virtual world.[1] The identifiers specified were:
- personal names;
- International Nonproprietary Names (INNs) for pharmaceutical substances;
- the names of international intergovernmental organizations;
- geographical indications, geographical terms, or indications of source; and
- trade names. "
WIPO subsequently wrote to ICANN on 21 Feb 2003:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/gurry-letter-to-cerf-lynn-21feb03.ht
m And requested that ICANN considered developing a dispute resolution process to deal with protecting the names and acronyms of International Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs) and country names (being one particular type of geographical identifier).
WIPO subsequently sent a letter to ICANN on 15 Nov 2005:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/gurry-to-cerf_twomey-15nov05.pdf
This letter essentially asks why ICANN has not "implemented" the recommendations from WIPO, supported by the GAC.
Now for ICANN to impose a dispute resolution mechanism that is binding on existing registrars and registries - would require a Consensus Policy from the GNSO.
Note however that ICANN can still impose provisions on new gTLD registry agreements. An example of which were some requirements for .info around country names.
So in summary, the reason it is on the agenda is to see if there would be support for initiating a PDP to develop an administrative proceeding to deal with disputes around the names and acronyms of International Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs).
Note that the GNSO may well decide to delay work on such a PDP until work is completed on the priority areas of new gTLDs, IDNs, and WHOIS.
However as a starting point, I think the whole Council at least needs a briefing on this area, which is what I have asked for at the next Council meeting.
Regards, Bruce Tonkin