The only reasons expressed by the numbers community in their proposal regarding the IANA trademark/domain name are that transferring the trademarks to a third party "will facilitate a smooth transition should another operator (or operators) be selected in the future" and that it should be done "in order to ensure that these assets are used in a nondiscriminatory manner for the benefit of the entire community.

Underlying the first reason is an apparent concern that that ICANN will be unwilling to allow use of the IANA trademarks and domain names in the event that the numbers community decided to give the Numbers Services Operator work to another (i.e, non-ICANN) entity.  ICANN has stated that they will enter into an agreement to grant usage rights to a new operator, but this came after the numbers proposal was finalized so its unclear if that would have any effect on the numbers community's view.

I don't recall reading anything that explained the apparent concern that ICANN would use the IPR assets in a "discriminatory manner," so I am at a loss to understand the genesis of this reason (and not surprisingly, there is nothing in the Sidley memo that deals with this mysterious concern).

It seems that this choice of the numbers community is being imposed on the names community solely based on separability concerns.  The Sidley memo addressed this to some extent, stating that ICANN could be obligated under its contracts to cooperate in any transition to a new operator, including by granting a trademark license to the new Numbers Services Operator for use of the IANA trademarks and to use some portion of the iana.org website for a subsite devoted to numbers matters (perhaps by creating a subdomain).

I would hope that there is room for further dialogue with the other communities, and for the names community to actually make a choice in this matter.  However, I'm concerned, based on some of the statements in this thread and some of the statements in the ICG proposal, that the CWG and the names community are being strong-armed to accept the numbers community proposal whether we like it or not.  And that is deeply troubling.

Greg



On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 11:04 PM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji@gmail.com> wrote:

I guess the numbers community indicated a few reasons why they "proposed" a transfer of the trademarks to IETF.

It may be good to check if those concerns where addressed in the report sent by the CWG legal client. If they were, then it will be good that Chairs of both communities discuss those points together.

If the CRISP chair is convinced, I am sure it will come back to the community for discussion. There is really no "cast in stone" content right now as the 3 communities has only proposed, so views can change, so long as there are compelling reasons.

Regards

On 6 Aug 2015 12:57 am, "Andrew Sullivan" <ajs@anvilwalrusden.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 05, 2015 at 07:54:08PM -0400, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> communities somehow agree to an arrangement that fits the names
> community's proposal requirements.

Um, "numbers community's", of course.  Sorry.

A
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Andrew Sullivan
ajs@anvilwalrusden.com
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