The ICANN meeting in Nairobi on 12 March 2010 ended with a decision to withdraw the EOI process that was proposed at the prior public meeting in Seoul, Korea in October 2009.  The ICANN Board determined the benefits of proceeding with an EOI proposal were outweighed by the costs of potential delay to the new gTLD program and the lack of certainty about the date when the overarching issues of the program could be resolved.

On 18 March 2010 Melbourne IT provided an update of the meeting.  In case you missed it or would like to review the content, the session was recorded.  You can access it by following this link : March gTLD Update

Summary of the current state of the New gTLD process
The ICANN Board resolutions on gTLDs were good news for brand owners, especially those who felt the need to apply to protect their interests prior to a number of outstanding trademark issues being resolved.   This also removed the concern with applicants having to make their intentions public before submitting a final application.

Now it appears the process will have a chance to move toward completion in an orderly fashion.  This will allow the major outstanding overarching issues to be addressed so applicants will be able to make more fully informed decisions on whether or not they will need or want to apply.

Two earlier proposals from the trademark protection community gained support and are now planned to be incorporated in some manner into the next version of the applicant guidebook. Those are the Trademark (TM) Clearinghouse and the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) proposals.   Both proposed measures will afford brand owners with improved protection mechanisms and reduce at least some of the costs associated with guarding against infringement.  Also receiving attention is a Post Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (PDDRP).  This proposal looks at resolving issues should a new gTLD registry deviate from its initial charter and in the process result in a claim by a rights holder.  Within the current PDDRP concept a panel would review the claims and determine if there is infringement of the rights of a rights holder.

ICANN also took the conservative step of requiring strict separation of entities offering registry services and those acting as registrars. The registry-registrar model with a separation of functions has worked well under the current market structure, but going forward where brand owners needing to manage second level domain names for their own use, it may not be ideal.  Recognizing this, the ICANN board also asked the GNSO council for further study of the issue and to potentially provide recommendations for more flexible registry/registrar separation policies.

Currently there is no official estimate from ICANN for when applications for gTLDs may begin.  It’s possible the 4th version of the applicant guidebook could be ready by the ICANN meeting in Brussels 25 June 2010, and then it may be possible to estimate next steps.