Special Trademark Issues Work Team Report to the GNSO Council
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 _________________
Dear All, Please note that the STI Report has been distributed to the GNSO Council, per the e-mail below. Because of the size of the document, it is possible that you may not have received the Report in your Inbox. If you did not receive it, you may download it from the GNSO Council's mailing list at: http://gnso.icann.org/mailing-lists/archives/council/msg08031.html Best Regards, Margie Milam __________________ Margie Milam Senior Policy Counselor ICANN _________________ From: owner-gnso-sti@icann.org [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@icann.org] On Behalf Of Margie Milam Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 10:20 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 _________________
Please forward Margie's messages, this one with the STI report attached and the one with the link to the document, to your respective groups for review and feedback immediately. As you all know, we have a short window on this but hopefully we will be able to take action on the report in our meeting six days from now. That will involve agreeing to an exception to the Council procedures regarding timing of motions and documents so also consider that and be prepared to communicate your group's position on that in addition to the report itself. A possible motion regarding action on the STI report will be drafted and distributed as soon as possible. I want to compliment the STI Group for what appears to be an extraordinary example of cooperative and constructive work on a controversial and time sensitive subject. Sincere thanks to everyone who contributed. As always, questions and comments on this list regarding the report are encouraged prior to our meeting on 17 December. And most importantly, please obtain input from your respective groups prior to the 17th so that we can take action in our meeting, remembering that the Board had asked us to respond to their request by 14 December. Then we can put this task to bed for now and hopefully better enjoy a happy holiday season. Chuck ________________________________ From: owner-gnso-sti@icann.org [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@icann.org] On Behalf Of Margie Milam Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 12:20 PM 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 _________________
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 _________________
Thanks Mike, Zahid and members of the BC for working diligently on your minority statement and for sending this end in advance of final approval by your membership. Chuck ________________________________ From: owner-gnso-sti@icann.org [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@icann.org] On Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 7:25 PM To: 'GNSO Council' Cc: 'gnso sti'; 'bc - GNSO list'; 'Margie Milam' Subject: RE: [gnso-sti] Special Trademark Issues Work Team Report to the GNSO Council 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 (415) 738-8087 <http://service.ringcentral.com/ringme/callback.asp?mbid=57178438,0,&ref erer=http://rodenbaugh.com/contact> 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 _________________
participants (3)
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Gomes, Chuck -
Margie Milam -
Mike Rodenbaugh