[ALAC] Meeting to discuss TMCH Implementation as well as possible changed to the TM protections

Fatimata fsylla at gmail.com
Sat Nov 17 16:24:10 UTC 2012


Thank you Alan and Evan for attending this marathon meeting and keeping us informed. 

ALAC should be given the means to physically participate next time IMHO.

Best,
Fatimata

T-Mobile. America's First Nationwide 4G Network

Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:

>I concur with what Alan said.
>
>While I was disheartened by the second-class-citizen status afforded ALAC
>at these meetings, our presence here was greater than it was within the IRT
>or STI efforts. I like to think that, together with the NCSG, we (again)
>fended off the worst excesses requested by the rights holders. However, as
>Alan said, we are sympathetic to the desire to reduce cybersquatting,
>frivolous and defensive registrations, and end-user confusion/misdirection.
>
>
>On 17 November 2012 00:10, Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca> wrote:
>
>> Copy of a message sent to ALAC list
>> ===================================
>>
>> As you are aware, a meeting was held in Brussels
>> several weeks ago to discuss implementation
>> issues for the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH).
>> The meeting included representatives of the GNSO
>> Stakeholder Groups and Constituencies, but not
>> At-Large. On Thursday and Friday of this week, a
>> follow-on meeting was held in Los Angeles. In
>> addition to a discussion of many of the technical
>> issues related to the TMCH, a full day was spend
>> discussing a list of issues that had been
>> presented to ICANN by the GNSO Business and
>> Intellectual Property Constituencies
>> (http://www.icann.org/en/news/correspondence/ncsg-to-icann-01nov12-en.pdf
>> ).
>> This time At-Large was represented (unfortunately
>> only remotely as no travel funding was provided).
>> I had the honour of participating along with Evan.
>>
>> The first day on the BC/IPC issues was both
>> interesting and productive. The intent was:
>>
>> 1. To fully understand what it was that the BC
>> and IPC were asking for. The original document
>> was not particularly clear, and in fact, the
>> BC/IPC have spent the weeks following Toronto fleshing out their ideas.
>>
>> 2. To understand whether these issues were in
>> fact just implementation (as the BC/IPC)
>> believed, or Policy, which should be addressed by
>> GNSO Policy processes. The issue has been much
>> discussed within ICANN, but the difference has
>> never been formally addressed before. Staff were
>> charged with starting to develop a methodology
>> for making such decisions in the future. Although
>> the work is still preliminary, it was used to
>> analyze the more controversial of the BC/IPC
>> proposals, and the outcome matched that of the
>> discussions within ALAC. They were all deemed to
>> be Policy and thus required GNSO action to
>> formally change the status quo (a relief to some
>> at the table, and troubling to others).
>>
>> 3. To brainstorm the issues raised by the BC/IPC
>> and see if any solutions could be found to
>> address the issues that concerned them which at
>> the same time might be acceptable to the other
>> stakeholders. After a rather harrowing day (12
>> solid hours, followed by another 2 hours on
>> Friday) the result was a strawman proposal. The
>> proposal completely pleased none of the people
>> involved, which some people say is a good measure
>> of a reasonable compromise. Regardless, it is a
>> good start for more traditional community-based
>> discussions which now have to happen.
>>
>> ALAC's first position was that we would prefer to
>> not have new policy changes in the new TLD
>> program at this late date. However we also did
>> look at the individual issues as discussed in a
>> message I sent earlier this week. The resultant
>> strawman proposal actually fits in moderately
>> well with the positions that ALAC took. Of
>> course, this is not yet a formal policy and there
>> are many details to be developed. This is perhaps
>> not surprising, as many of the ALAC positions to
>> protect innocent Internet users coincide well
>> with TM holders desire to prevent cyber-squatting
>> and fraud, and the over-reaching that some
>> attribute to TM holders (that is, wanting
>> protections far an above those granted by the TM
>> itself) were to some extent held in control.
>>
>> I have to note that this type of focus group is
>> not an unknown way to try to bridge widely
>> disparate positions, but it is a very uncommon
>> one in ICANN, and one that some people have said
>> violates the bottom up multi-stakeholder model of
>> ICANN. It does bear some similarity to the STI
>> group which many herald as one of the more
>> effective ICANN policy efforts. It also re-opened
>> issues that the community (well, part of the
>> community including At-Large) had thought or
>> hoped were closed issues. Whether it was an
>> effective move or not history will tell. One of
>> the measures that I have is how quickly we can
>> convene a more formal ICANN process to refine and
>> actually approve a policy coming out of this proposal.
>>
>> After Toronto, ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé had said
>> that he considers the TMCH to be a critical issue
>> and would personally oversee its implementation.
>> True to his word, he personally ran the 14 hours
>> of meetings. It was interesting!
>>
>> I will elaborate (as perhaps will Evan) more in
>> the coming days on some of the high and low
>> points of the meeting, but this will have to do
>> for the moment. Today I was on the call for over
>> 8 hours, and yesterday including a GNSO meeting
>> starting at 6 am and one other WG, I totaled 15
>> hours of teleconferences. So it is perhaps time
>> for a bit of rest and relaxation.
>>
>> You can find the initial description of outcomes
>> of the meeting at
>> http://blog.icann.org/2012/11/trademark-clearinghouse-update/.
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
>-- 
>Evan Leibovitch
>Toronto Canada
>
>Em: evan at telly dot org
>Sk: evanleibovitch
>Tw: el56
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