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
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
_________________