[council] RE: [gnso-sti] Special Trademark Issues Work Team Report to the GNSO Council

["Gomes, Chuck" <cgomes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks Mike, Zahid and members of the BC for working diligently on your
minority statement and for sending this end in advance of final approval
by your membership.  
 
Chuck


________________________________

        From: owner-gnso-sti@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@xxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Mike Rodenbaugh
        Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 7:25 PM
        To: 'GNSO Council'
        Cc: 'gnso sti'; 'bc - GNSO list'; 'Margie Milam'
        Subject: RE: [gnso-sti] Special Trademark Issues Work Team
Report to the GNSO Council
        
        

        Thanks Margie and everyone else in the STI group, it was a
monstrous effort in a ludicrously short timeframe.  The BC Minority
Statement is attached.  Zahid and I believe it reflects the consensus of
our membership, after active consultation with them throughout the STI
process.  However the document is out for comment within our
Constituency, so may be modified and may not be a final version for up
to three weeks, per the terms of our Charter.  

         

        We do not object to nearly as many things as are reflected in
the .pdf charts from Margie this morning, so hopefully they will be
updated online at least.  On those charts, our Minority Statement is
relevant to sections 3, 4, 6.1, 7 and 10.1 re the Clearinghouse, and
section 7.1 re the URS.

         

        We object to only two aspects of the Clearinghouse as it is
devised within the STI Initial Report:  1) the breadth of data allowed
into the Clearinghouse,  and 2) required use of information within the
Clearinghouse, beyond Sunrise Periods, to serve notices to registrants
or would-be registrants that there is a potential trademark conflict
related to their registration.   We believe that businesses ought to get
more benefit from the Clearinghouse, than merely the right to buy domain
names during sunrise periods - which most do not want to do.  We believe
businesses should get more protection than the right to buy exact
matches only of registered trademarks.  If they wish to purchase other
trademark names during sunrise, because they believe squatters otherwise
will, then they should be allowed to do so (as in .asia, .tel and .eu
launches, at least).  Further, we believe that broadening the use of the
Clearinghouse in these ways would be beneficial to everyone in the
community insofar as pertinent information would be available, which
could be used to notify registrants of potential domain name disputes at
the point of sale, thereby avoiding a substantial percentage of those
domain disputes.  The ICANN community ought to demonstrate this
commitment to avoiding these costly and frequent disputes.

         

        We object to only one failing of the URS as stated in the STI
report -- that it would not provide successful complainants the option
to have the clearly infringing domain name registration(s) transferred.
We believe that, after all appeal timeframes have lapsed, the successful
complainant will have demonstrated a clear and convincing burden of
proof, and so should be allowed to put the formerly infringing domain
names to beneficial use.  We believe the absence of this remedy will
result in underutilization of this process, and thus continued
overutilization of the more expensive UDRP, in many more obvious cases
of cybersquatting.  At minimum, we believe some sort of feasibility
study should be conducted before a decision is made to include it, or
not, as an available remedy.

         

        We hope, at least, that these potential future modifications
would be possible within a flexible design of these new systems, so they
are not costly to add if the community later sees any wisdom in doing
so.

         

        Thanks,

        Mike Rodenbaugh

        GNSO Councilor, Business Constituency

         

         

        Mike Rodenbaugh

        RODENBAUGH LAW

        548 Market Street

        San Francisco, CA  94104

        (415) 738-8087
<http://service.ringcentral.com/ringme/callback.asp?mbid=57178438,0,&ref
erer=http://rodenbaugh.com/contact> 

        http://rodenbaugh.com <http://rodenbaugh.com/> 

         

         

        From: owner-gnso-sti@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-gnso-sti@xxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Margie Milam
        Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 9:20 AM
        To: GNSO Council
        Cc: gnso sti
        Subject: [gnso-sti] Special Trademark Issues Work Team Report to
the GNSO Council
        Importance: High

         

        Dear All,

         

        On behalf of  David Maher, the Chair of the STI Work Team,  I am
pleased to forward the Report from the Special Trademark Issues Work
Team describing recommendations for the GNSO Council to consider at its
meeting on 17 December 2009.

         

        Please note that there are several minority reports that are
currently under development, as referenced in Annex 4, that will be sent
separately to the GNSO Council as they are completed.

         

        Best Regards,

         

        Margie Milam

         

        _________________

         

        Margie Milam

        Senior Policy Counselor

        ICANN

        _________________