Dear IDN WG members, please be so kind to find the Board New gTLD Program Committee's reply regarding the ALAC Statement on the Trademark Clearinghouse and IDN Variants which we submitted at the end of May. I note that the response suggests that a small group meets with select Board members. I have suggested that those Board members come to the A-Large IDN WG meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Failing that, I have asked that Gisella & her counterpart on Board Support would look for a suitable slot for a meeting. Kind regards, Olivier -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Response to the ALAC Statement on TMCH and IDN Variants Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2013 11:01:08 -0700 From: Cherine Chalaby <cherine.chalaby@icann.org> To: Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond <ocl@gih.com> Dear Olivier, On behalf of the New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC), I thank you for providing the ALAC Statement on the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) and IDN Variants, dated 30 May 2013. The NGPC appreciates the attention the ALAC has given to this topic and has reviewed the statement carefully. Variants are a complex topic, and the current approach with variants in TMCH is to leave variants out of TMCH itself, and rely on registries to handle variant issues. There are good reasons for taking such an approach and the NGPC believes that the current direction is appropriate. Registries have their own policies for variants (whether to reserve, allocate, etc.). If, however, there are any specific gaps in behavior with respect to trademarks, variants, and TMCH, it would be helpful to identify them and raise them in the appropriate venues . We encourage ALAC to identify any such issues. To encourage discussion and explore specific potential gaps in more detail, it may be helpful to have a small group of interested parties (from ALAC, staff, and selected board members) meet in Durban. The goal of such a meeting would be to identify specific gaps in the area of trademarks and IDN variant names where additional work might be appropriate. Please find attached the full response of the NGPC to the ALAC Statement. All the best, Cherine