Agree with you Carlton. There are some additional issues: One is the privacy issue, as mentioned in Michele Neylon's posting on CircleID: http://www.circleid.com/posts/20090426_icann_irt_report_comment_short_timefr... Another one I see is that the report insists that there should be no "unnecessary or undue costs, either to trademark owners or to legitimate users and consumers". Nothing comes for free, so who is going to bear the cost ? The IRT seems to think the registries should bear the cost of protecting someone else's IP rights. However, if the registries' operating costs are increasing due to the long and painful IP rights checking and possible liability, they will be passed on to all registrants in the end via an increase of the unit price for domain names, whether or not those registrants have IP rights to defend or not. Higher prices for domain names means less attractiveness and sales. For the community-based TLDs, with a limited market, it may not look like a viable path to set up such an expensive machinery. In effect, the IRT recommendations might kill all TLDs that do not focus on large volumes. Patrick On Sun, 26 Apr 2009 17:40:34 -0500, Carlton Samuels <carlton.samuels@uwimona.edu.jm> wrote:

Thanks for sharing this Alan.

I'm too am no expert but sooooo many things are commonsensical if you understand and subscribe to principle. One of the recommendations is for a Globally Protected Marks List with a high threshold to entry. In context, here's an interesting formulation from the report:

*"Certain categories of marks may warrant different levels of protection. For example, extremely strong globally‐recognized marks may justify a higher level of protection than lesser‐known marks; "*

Um, I wonder what is the legal criteria that separates a "swoosh" from a "hemp leaf"? That Nike has loads of money to hire IP lawyers in every jurisdiction in the world but a small clothing manufacturer don't? So now, it appears these eminences would junk the principle of equal protection of the laws and give the green light to copycats, depending on the strength of cash of the mark holder? Say it ain't so!

Is there a sense that a mark may become more "globally-recognized" - translate that term to mean valuable - in time? And who's counting that?

I will tell you the story about a local Mom-and-Pop food shop owned by a family named McDonald and the McDonald Corporation - yes, the Ronald McDonald one - one day.........

Carlton Samuels

On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@mcgill.ca>wrote:

...

The draft IRT report on Intellectual Property issues associated with gTLDs was released yesterday.

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-24apr09-en.htm

http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/irt-draft-report-trademark-protecti...

...

Note that although it is posted for a 30 day comment period, the final report is due on 24 May 2009, and comments to be considered in the drafting of the final report must be submitted by 6 May 2009 - 11 days from

today.

...

It is clear that the IRT group has done an enormous amount of work in a very short time. I will leave it to experts in the field to comment on the appropriateness of their recommendations.

Alan

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