Just to followup on Option #6, I was reviewing some of the public comments to the draft report from earlier this year, and the comments of the Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC) touched upon the "in rem" topic in a couple of places: https://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-igo-ingo-crp-access-initial-20jan17/m... "2. Explicitly permitting appeals of the decision to any court of competent jurisdiction, e.g., on an in rem basis where the domain name is located (via the registry or registrar)....." (page 3) and "The separate IGO DRP could include explicit instructions that any decisions under the DRP would be appealable to any court of competent jurisdiction on an in rem basis where the domain name is located (via the registry or registrar)." (page 6) Of course, their comments were in a slightly different context, arguing for the creation of an IGO-specific DRP, an approach that the members of this PDP have categorically rejected. However, their comments on "in rem" proceedings are entirely consistent with the underlying principles and justification for Option #6. Indeed, the IPC went even further, advocating that appeals to *any court of competent jurisdiction* in rem would be desirable --- Option #6 (as currently proposed) would limit the "in rem" action to that of the "mutual jurisdiction" in the URS/UDRP. Sincerely, George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/ On Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 8:24 PM, George Kirikos <icann@leap.com> wrote:

Hi folks,

After debating how best to word the final text, I think I've come up with a concise representation of the proposal (open to friendly amendments).

As noted in earlier discussions, it can either be fully incorporated into the existing "Option C" (which I believe had been the original intention when the options had been aggregated from 6 numeric options into 3 alphabetized ones, but option #6 had been overlooked). Or alternatively, it can become an independent option on its own.

--------- start of final text ------------------ The text of both the UDRP and URS rules and policies shall be modified so that, in the event a domain name dispute (UDRP or URS) is initiated by an IGO as complainant and a registrant commences an "in rem" action in a court of mutual jurisdiction concerning that domain name, the registrar shall treat that court action in the same manner as if an "in personam" action had been brought directly against the IGO. --------- end of final text -----------

I believe that text captures Option #6 in its entirety, without doing a line-by-line modification of the UDRP and URS text within the proposal itself (leaves that task to an implementation review team). Only a few paragraphs of the UDRP and URS would need to be adjusted. I've also narrowed the focus to only IGOs above, but it could easily be adapted (and indeed, implemented more elegantly) for any type of complainant, not just IGOs (i.e. it was simply sloppy drafting of the UDRP/URS that limited domain locking and maintenance of the status quo by the registrars to "in personam" cases at present, as the drafters hadn't contemplated that court actions might be initiated in any other manner).

For the background of this proposal, previous emails cover it at:

http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2017-July/000811.html http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2017-November/000944.html http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/gnso-igo-ingo-crp/2017-December/000957.html

If Zak's recent proposal is adopted, whereby these multiple interrelated issues we've identified which have root causes that have broader impacts not just involving IGOs are forwarded directly to the RPM PDP for deeper analysis and consideration, then this Option #6 would merit inclusion in that, given that there's really nothing specific to IGOs in this proposal (although that I was forced to reword it as such), except that we discovered this issue in the context of an IGO PDP working group.

Sincerely,

George Kirikos 416-588-0269 http://www.leap.com/