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ALAC Statement on the Trademark Clearinghouse and IDN Variants

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Introduction

Rinalia Abdul Rahim, ALAC member and Executive Committee member from the Asian, Australasian and Pacific Islands Regional At-Large Organization (APRALO), and Hong Xue, At-Large member from APRALO, composed an initial draft of this Statement [PDF, 337 KB] after discussion of the topic within At-Large and on the Mailing Lists.

On 11 April 2013, this Statement was posted on the At-Large Trademark Clearinghouse and IDN Variants Workspace.

On 23 April 2013, Olivier Crépin-Leblond, Chair of the ALAC, requested ICANN Policy Staff in support of ALAC to send a Call for Comments on the draft Statement to all At-Large members via the ALAC Announce Mailing List.

On 9 May 2013, a version incorporating the comments received was posted and the Chair requested that Staff open a five-day ALAC ratification on the Statement.

On 20 May 2013, Staff confirmed that the online vote resulted in the ALAC endorsing the Statement with 13 votes in favor, 0 votes against, and 0 abstentions. You may review the result independently under: https://www.bigpulse.com/pollresults?code=3123CkrRt5n5tCzYdgAq4CUs

The Chair then requested that the Statement be transmitted to the Public Comment process, copying the ICANN Staff member responsible for this Public Comment topic.

Summary

  1. Call for a more open and flexible TMCH model that is variants-friendly and support a community-based, bottom-up solution for TMCH implementation.
  2. Ensure the IDN variant issue is addressed before the TMCH begin providing services to the new gTLD registries.
  3. Request from the ICANN CEO an interim mechanism that can yield appropriate solutions efficiently and on an urgent basis that may involve the following:
    1. ICANN (staff) providing relevant expertise to the community to develop interim services in order to authenticate and verify that trademarks are compatible with variants. Such services should be interoperable with the TMCH so as to enable the timely launch of the IDN TLDs;
    2. A consideration for expediting the LGR process for the Han script; and
    3. Longer-term recommendation: A review of the IDN Tables and IDN Registration Rules and Policies submitted by new gTLD applicants offering IDN registrations as a basis for developing a more comprehensive, longer-term solution.