Dear All,

Please see below the action items and notes captured by staff from the Data Sub Team call held on 08 June 2018 (1700 UTC). Staff have posted to the wiki space the action items and notes. Please note that these will be high-level notes and are not meant as a substitute for the transcript or recording. The recording, AC chat, and attendance records are posted on the wiki at: https://community.icann.org/x/Mi4FBQ.

Have a great weekend!

Best Regards,

Ariel

Ariel Xinyue Liang

Policy Analyst | Washington, DC

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

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ACTION ITEMS

Staff to report to IT about the AC freezing issue that Lori experienced.
Staff to identify the target respondents for the TM survey, taking into consideration the outside/inside counsel who may fill out this survey.
Lori to reference the INTA survey and provide input to Q3, with the aim to elicit information on business volume.
Susan/Kristine to help revise Q6/Q6a to include more appropriate bands.
Sub Team to finish TM survey and review the Registrar survey on Monday, 11 June. Susan to provide redline comments/edits in the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sVyYahCcRY8HGoIXOO2kJXy48gQnsbms2xFeAbDXrfM/edit?usp=sharing

NOTES

General Comments

The acronyms in the survey questions should be spelt out.
INTA members are suffering PTSD from the New gTLD Cost Survey. Lori is not sure whether INTA will agree to distribute the survey, but can distribute to its Internet and Data Protection Committees. Any other distribution outside of that scope will need INTA executive approval. Lori could also send to MARQUES and CITMA internet committees and ask them to circulate. Others in the Sub Team may be able to do same?

Q1/Q2

Brands themselves may not be able to answer these questions. Allow the brands to forward the questions to the right respondents (e.g., outside counsel or source) who can answer, but be mindful of the additional time it could take.
If ICANN distribute this survey to the IPC, these questions would go to the outside counsel. Perhaps include a tick box for respondents to check whether they are inside counsel or outside counsel.

Does the survey include any question for respondents to indicate the size of their business (e.g., small/medium/large companies)? There are questions about how many TM registrations the companies hold. Maybe beneficial to ask where the TM is registered.
50+ TMs is NOT a large portfolio. A tiny company with 3 brands (and word and design marks) can easily hit 50 registrations. The size of TM portfolio does not necessarily correlate to the size of the business.
We do get into portfolio size when we determine how many Sunrise registrations they went for as a percentage of portfolio size.
Make Trademark Ownership (not outside counsel) a threshold question.
ACTION ITEM: Lori to reference the INTA survey and provide input to Q3, with the aim to elicit information on the business volume.
ACTION ITEM: Staff to identify the target respondents for the TM survey, taking into consideration the outside/inside counsel who may fill out this survey.

Q4/Q4a/Q4b

The sub questions should only be answered if the respondents have participated in the TMCH/Sunrise. Include a trigger/threshold question. if the respondents say "no" in the previous question, they don't need to answer the following questions.
Even if there are no records of the registered trademarks in the TMCH, we may still want to ask respondents whether they have filed a UDRP.
Asking whether they filed a UDRP may go beyond the scope of the survey.
Are the right people using the Sunrise & Claims RPMs? If they indicate it is just simpler to use the URS or UDRP, it is a useful answer. Support to develop questions designed to elicit those responses.
Suggest including the “If you did not record your TM, why not?” as Q4b. Since 4b really terminates the survey, or almost terminates the survey, we can ask for more elaboration as to why.
Some TM holders may rely on a watching service through an outside counsel. Provide an open text field for them to elaborate.
Would it be helpful to specify the likely reasons why people do not record any TM with the TMCH?

Agree with Kristine's comments. Some clients put the marks in the TMCH because they want to use some of its services, not because of Sunrise.
Agree with including Susan's suggestions. Good general categories to include as options.

Q5a

50+ TM could capture a whole slew of companies, including small companies. We segmented on volume of business not size of portfolios. Portfolios do not always correspond to size of business. Large portfolio is not necessarily owned by large businesses; it really depends. Brand owners usually put 2-3 marks of the highest value in the TMCH. You do not have owners put dozens of marks in the TMCH. The number of TMs a company has also does not correlate to the number of marks in the TMCH and does not correlate to the number of Sunrise registrations they've opted for.
Either the TM owner or its Service Providers can provide the TMCH recordation and other numbers easily and quickly.
Kristine's suggestion for “some/most/all” would be more relevant.
Suggest asking what percentage of respondents’ TMs are participating in Sunrise to provide an idea of scale. This would help the WG to see how the bands look like. Maybe “some/most/all” is a bit vague.
A percentage would be an estimate. People will guess, and we are not going to get exact numbers either way.
If we ask for percentage, the risk is that the person filling out the survey may just quit rather than calling someone or looking it up.
If such an easy thing sends respondents away, do we really want or can we trust their other answers? Not sure how really relevant it is to get this data.
Provide the options to make it a little easier for people to answer.

Q6/Q6a

The original draft question does not ask how many TMs have been recorded. It asks how many domain names have been registered as a result of the Sunrise.
For brands like Amazon, they may have one mark in the TMCH, but have registered many more domain names.
Companies would have a clear idea how many domains they bought during the Sunrise period. Be clear which question we are asking.
These bands are probably appropriate, although some companies may have more than 50 recordation.
We won't know if our top answer is 50. There should be a 500+. And we should consider if the brand owner will amalgamate them. For one mark, a brand owner might register DNs in 200 Sunrises. And for a different mark, might register DNs in 200 different Sunrises. So that's two marks, 400 different Sunrises. So what should that brand owner answer? 200 (max DNs for mark 1) or 400 (max DNs total).
We need a revised Bands. MM, CSC or Corsearch might have ideas about this. Corsearch is affiliated with Com Laude.
ACTION ITEM: Susan/Kristine to help revise Q6/Q6a to include more appropriate bands.

Some respondents may check every single one of these reasons. Not sure whether it would be helpful.
For big companies, they may tick all the options. Smaller entities may have fewer reasons. How they answer this question depends on their business volume/TM portfolio.
Maybe we ask respondents to rank the reasons?
A likert scale sounds like a good way to collect the information. Likert scale for each reason, or ask respondents to rank one reason against another.
Have we talked about adding availability of UDRP and URS as part of the thought processes on this question? Kathy added that to the question.
No agreement to add the UDRP/URS related reason. TM holders always have the opportunity to participate in UDRP/URS. They participate in Sunrise because they can deal with UDRP/URS later.

Q8/Q8a/Q8b

To understand pricing is important to this Sub Team. We should get a grid or metric to understand that information.
Convert the question to likert scale for respondents to indicate how important pricing is in their decisions? Or include multiple choice options for respondents to indicate how frequently the pricing factor affect their decisions in participating in Sunrise period?
If the price of Sunrise is higher than the cost of UDRP or URS, that would be part of the consideration. Price of Sunrise should be part of the calculus.
No agreement to add UDRP/URS related edits in Q8b. Calling out UDRP and URS is dangerous. Price for Sunrise is going to be balanced against the value of the trademark. It is going to balanced against many other costs (e.g., UDRP, URS, watch list, litigation). It would open a can of worms. We should try to keep the metrics slightly high level. We should not start guessing all the price variables.

Merge with Q8 to reflect the two different aspects.

Q10/Q11/Q11a

Keep these questions. Many brand owners can answer these questions. There may be some outliers that registered so many domain names and don’t have a handle on this. Many other TM owners would know.
Make these questions optional, so the people who can/want to answer would answer.
Ask what the most outrageous pricing situation is, with an open text field. People do want to tell their horror stories. Not good to ask what TM holders paid for the registration, but ask in a way that could generate useful responses. Is there a price the brand owner didn’t want to pay for the registration? What is the extreme price that the TM owners are unwilling to pay?
The price the brand is willing to pay depends on the value of the brand. Asking anecdote is a good option. We want people to highlight things that they are willing to tell. Don’t use the word ‘extreme’. Leave the question open ended and get the story, without limiting too much.
The price the brand is willing to pay may also depend on the gTLD. For example, the base price of .luxury was 10K. If you register domains in the Sunrise period it is 20K. It is an issue that we want to tease out in this question.
There is notable Sunrise period that TM holders have to pay more (discriminatory pricing).
Registry was setting the base price, not the registrar. Although some registrars did charge quite large mark ups on top. Some did not.
Both sides of the equation try to game the system. We want to find out in this pricing mechanism, has there been any unfair play.
If you are a small business you could more easily figure out what service to spend money on. Some charitable brand may spend more on Sunrise than Fortune 50 brands.
We are trying to get complicated information, so asking anecdotal experience would be the best option here.
Agree to add the suggested edit “in that gTLD” in Q11a.

Q17

Remove this question as it has been asked multiple times.

Q18

Include a reminder of Sunrise Period Registration in the intro.

Q19

Agree to drop the question. It implies legal matter and could be a leading question.
Disagree with dropping this question.
Michael added options in Q19ai and Q19b to elicit more information from respondents. Having options rather than open text fields (where possible) can make the survey much easier for respondents. Also, offering options can give respondents an idea for what types of responses you are eliciting.
Alternative options for Q19a: Yes, no, don't know, explain?

Q25

Agree with the Kristine’s suggestion. Move it to the end of the survey if we keep this question.

Q29/Q29a/Q29b/Q29c/Q29d

Q29a looks at NORNs, Q29b proceedings, Q29c not exact matches, Q29d variants.
We want to know whether an enforcement effort has been taken, or people go to the extent of litigation.
Are your exact matches exact enough to trigger NORNs?
Just because proceedings are brought doesn’t mean it is reasonable or helpful. Is this question an overkill? Maybe it is better to ask what UDRP/URS court cases that TM holders have been involved in, what are the results and what they feel about them?
TM owners won’t give you confidential information. We can ask “How many proceedings have you brought? How many have been successful?”