In the last round, in order to get "Brand Status", the following needed to occur: 1. Applicant submits a Specification 13 application to qualify for .Brand Status. This application consisted of: * Agreement to Spec 13 * A physical copy of the trademark registration * A copy of your registration policies (which would already be in the original application) * The Trademark Clearinghouse's SMD file ID number. In order to get your mark into the Trademark Clearinghouse, there is a $155 per year fee (with discounts for longer registration periods). In exchange for that, the TMCH verifies the trademark and performs some functions with respect to the Sunrise Periods and claims services of ALL new gTLDs. What does this mean? 1. It means that ICANN does NOT need to separately verify the trademark registration because that is being done by the Trademark Clearinghouse (FOR ONLY $155). 2. All ICANN needs to do is to (a) glance over the policies of the Applicant (which has already been submitted in the original application) to ensure that it says it will be used as described in Spec 13; and (b) Get a signature on Spec 13. But ICANN is proposing a $5,000 fee? This makes no sense. Really ICANN should not be charging anything, but if it does want to charge, my small firm would be happy to provide this service to ICANN for $500 per application. That would be 90% off of the lowest $5000 fee proposed by ICANN and 95% off of the high estimate of $10,000. The above offer is serious as I am a qualified IP attorney. Sincerely, jeff [cid:2cd7e7a9-5504-4ec5-b6d8-9b53d2da865c]
