[ALAC] Outcome of new gTLDs, "Strawman" proposal

Alan Greenberg alan.greenberg at mcgill.ca
Tue Mar 26 13:36:38 UTC 2013


Thanks Olivier. Two quick points (and not enough 
time before the ALAC meeting to do more thorough research).

- My recollection is that we did support (or 
perhaps support further discussion) of the use of 
marks-contain protections, where the new string 
was a combination of a trademark plus a 
product/service associated with that mark (exxon-gasoline for instance).

- I think that if the ALAC want so issue a 
statement saying that although we support the 
overall concept, we still believe that it should 
have resulted from a policy process and not 
edict, it would be fully consistent with previous 
statements. We "did" support creating new rights, 
both in the STI and the Strawman statement. But 
not through the process ultimately chosen by staff.

Note also that this is a remarkably weak win for 
TM owners. It is for strings that they have 
already won a dispute over and perhaps already 
own in some existing TLD, it is for sunrise and 
claims notice only, and the latter for just 90 
days (since they did not include the ongoing (weaker) claims notice).

Alan

At 26/03/2013 08:43 AM, Olivier MJ Crepin-Leblond wrote:
>Dear Alan,
>
>thanks for this quick summary.
>One item which has been matter of strong debate on the NCSG list has
>been the matter of Trademark Claims Protection for Previously Abused Names:
>
>Quoting from the ICANN Staff announcement:
>"The fourth element of the Strawman model was a proposal that where
>there are domain labels that have been found to be the subject of
>abusive registrations (for example, as a result of a UDRP or court
>proceeding), a limited number (up to 50) of these could be added to a
>Clearinghouse record. These names would be mapped to an existing record
>where the trademark has already been verified by the Clearinghouse."
>
>The ALAC has, in its statement, supported the idea whilst insisting that
>the exact details of this idea, since it would be a change of policy,
>needed to be worked out in the GNSO:
>
>Quoted from the Public Comments report:
>"Given the limited nature of this protection and its reliance on past
>abuse, ALAC supports the inclusion of domain names previously determined
>to have been abusively registered or used in both Trademark Claims
>services. This change is a totally new mechanism that has not been the
>subject of previous extensive discussion and investigation; as such, it
>is clearly policy and cannot be judged simply as implementation. ALAC
>encourages the GNSO to fairly investigate the benefits and impacts of
>this mechanism and to recommend its adoption. ALAC (16 Jan. 2013)"
>
>Alan - I do not believe that our position has changed on this, and I am
>concerned about accusations that the ALAC supports creating new rights.
>Whilst it is clear that previously abused names have a significant
>negative effect on Internet users, the proper course of action should
>have been to consult the GNSO. To-date, we do not know *what* kind of
>variation would be allowed, whether this includes typo-squatting, visual
>similarity or other systems that might be used to stifle freedom of speech.
>May I remind you that the ALAC's position on the STI was to not allow
>for other "rights" to be afforded, but that any additional information
>that a Trademark holder would like to specify to be displayed for a
>potential registrant could be contained in another database - but one
>which did not hold the same legal status as the "main" TMCH database.
>
>A GNSO WG would have raised questions about that. I am all for
>protecting Internet users from fraud - but I am also process-oriented
>and am therefore very concerned that this creates a precedent. We have
>complained in the past that staff implementation is different than what
>we had envisaged. Here, we clearly said it was policy & staff made a
>policy decision.
>
>In light of this, I'd like to first get a point of view from ALAC
>members here, and second, suggest that this specific point (TMCH+50) be
>a topic for discussion in our meeting with the NCSG on Monday 8 April.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Olivier
>
>
>On 22/03/2013 03:44, Alan Greenberg wrote:
> > ICANN has announced the outcome of the new gTPD trademark protection
> > discussion.
> >
> > 
> http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/strawman-solution-memo-20mar13-en.pdf
> >
> > Although the outcomes were not exactly as the ALAC advised (in terms
> > of what required policy development), all of the IP protections that
> > ICANN will be moving ahead with were supported by the ALAC, and the
> > one additional protection that the ALAC explicitly did not support
> > will not be implemented.
> >
> > Also a vlog from the CEO -
> > http://blog.icann.org/2013/03/new-gtld-milestones-and-deadlines/.
> >
> > Alan
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > ALAC mailing list
> > ALAC at atlarge-lists.icann.org
> > https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/alac
> >
> > At-Large Online: http://www.atlarge.icann.org
> > ALAC Working Wiki: 
> https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+Advisory+Committee+(ALAC)
> >
>
>--
>Olivier MJ Crépin-Leblond, PhD
>http://www.gih.com/ocl.html





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