March 17, 2009
Allegations of cybersquatting by trademark holders continued to rise in 2008, with a record 2,329 complaints filed under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center.
In a report containing details on cybersquatting the WIPO Director General also took the opportunity to comment on the New gTLD process. “The creation of an unknowable and potentially vast number of new gTLDs raises significant issues for rights holders, as well as Internet users generally,” said Mr. Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General. “Cybersquatting remains a serious issue for trademark holders .”
This statement comes after ICANN has agreed to form a committee specifically to address these and other concerns of trademark holders before moving forward with approving new gTLDs.
Read the full WIPO release
In last weeks webinar, Melbourne IT outlined solutions the company planned to propose around trademark protection at the time of registration and take down processes for malicious use of domain names.
These solutions were shared with brand holders in Mexico City. Other groups also joined in the discussion of possible solutions. Overall there was a willingness among the intellectual property, business users, registry, and registrar groups to work together to come up with implementable solutions.
As a result, the ICANN Board requested that ICANN’s intellectual property constituency convene an Implementation Recommendation Team to work to develop and propose solutions to the overarching issue of trademark protection in connection with the introduction of new gTLDs. ICANN has allocated staff and travel funding for this group.
Melbourne IT will continue to work with this community to refine solutions further. The team has a deadline of 24 April 2009 to produce a draft report, and 24 May 2009 to produce a final report detailing potential workable solutions.
ICANN has responded to the US Department of Commerce letter calling for the completion of economic studies to support the need for New gTLDS.
On March 4, 2009 ICANN posted two reports by Dennis Carlton, a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago in support of the economic benefits of New gTLD stated by ICANN. Professor Carlton was the highest-ranking economist in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 2006 to 2008, and currently is a Senior Managing Director of Compass Lexecon, a prestigious economic consulting firm specializing in competition matters.
To further address the comments from the DoC, ICANN has made the documents available for reading and comment. A public comment forum has been opened on these preliminary reports prepared by Professor Carlton for 45 days, until 17 April 2009. The complete Preliminary Reports and Public Comment Forum can be found by clicking here.
March 2, 2009
Kurt Pritz reported today that the final applicant guidebook is expected to be published around October 2009. Following publication of the guidelines, the first application submissions will be accepted in December 2009.
ICANN will initiate a significant communication program around the new proposal process two months before the release of the final guidebook.
ICANN acknowledges need to address trademark concerns for new gTLDs
In the open ceremony of the ICANN meeting in Mexico City, ICANN Chairman, Peter Dengate-Thrush confirmed the Board has very clearly heard the concerns of the business community about some aspects of the new gTLD process, and completely understands and wants to respect the rights of trademark holders.
He re-iterated that the Board is committed to addressing the concerns before opening the application process. ICANN now does not expect to accept New gTLD applications until December 2009 at the earliest.
ICANN to seek new CEO in 2009
The current CEO of ICANN, Dr Paul Twomey, has announced that he will not renew his term of CEO after his contract concludes on 30 June 2009. Paul has served as the CEO of ICANN for nearly 7 years. Paul will stay on as “Senior President” through the end of the year to advise the new CEO, and assist ICANN in further developing the process for new gTLDs and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), and managing the conclusion of the Joint Project Agreement (JPA) with the US Government.
On Thursday February 26, Bruce Tonkin, CTO of Melbourne IT and Mike Rodenbaugh of Rodenbaugh Law and former Yahoo! IP attorney, presented a webinar on the changes to the New gTLD process.
As Bruce Tonkin explained, several of the key changes to the current draft gTLD proposal are:
- Application dates being pushed out to late 2009
- ICANN will publish all applications after their initial review
- There will be both an objection and public comment period regarding the applications
- A refund schedule for withdrawal of applications at various stages
- Reduction in ongoing annual registration fees from $75,000 US to $25,000 US
Below are links that will enable you to download a PDF of the presentation, or view and listen to a recording of the web session.
Listen to a recording of the presentation.
Additional web sessions will be scheduled to go over news coming out of the March ICANN meeting being held in Mexico City. Please check back for dates and times.
The main changes in the applicant guidebook include:
- Tighter compliance requirements for Registry Operators, including rights for ICANN to audit some operations.
- Some lifting on restrictions on registry-registrar cross-ownership.
- The annual registry fee of $75,000 has been adjusted down to a minimum of US$25,000, and a US$0.25 transaction fee for registrations within more than 50,000 names.
- Refunds to the application fee if an applicant drops out at different stages in the process.
- Tighter definitions around geographic names.
- Auctions as a mechanisms of last resort to resolve contention between two parties wanting the same name – with any resulting funds being returned to the community via a separate foundation.
- Noted that it is unlikely that the application round will open before December 2009.
In addition ICANN has also identified issues that need more discussion before the Applicant Guidebook can be finalized. These include:
- More work needed on protection of existing domain name registrants and end-user confusion.
- A technical analysis of the combined impact of the introduction of IPv6 records, DNSSEC, IDN-ccTLDs and new gTLDs (including IDNs) on the root zone.
- An analysis of specific types of malicious behaviour that may occur with new gTLDs.
- Enhanced protection for trademark holders.
- Economic study on the impacts of new gTLDs.
ICANN is now seeking feedback – both on the recent changes, as well as the major issues identified for further work.
In anticipation of a revised gTLD proposal being available prior to the Mexico ICANN meeting, Melbourne IT has scheduled two webinar sessions on Thursday, February 26 to review the changes and new information. Dr. Bruce Tonkin, Melbourne IT CTO and ICANN Board Member, and Mike Rodenbaugh an expert in IP law, will be highlighting and commenting on the changes and updates to the revised draft proposal document. At the conclusion of the webinar, they will take questions from the listening audience.
Webinar for Europe:
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM CET (Central European Time) – 9:00 AM EST (US Eastern Time)
Click Here to Register
Webinar for the US:
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2009
Time: 12:00 Noon EST (US Eastern Time)
Click Here to Register
In a little over two weeks, ICANN’s 34th international public meeting will take place in Mexico City. Discussion on gTLDs will be a major topic.
ICANN has set up an online question box to allow those who are not able to physically attend, to ask a question directly of ICANN staff and/or the ICANN Board. The question box is online now at: http://icann.wufoo.com/forms/mexico-city-question-box/
The expectation is that as many questions as possible will be answered during the sessions with the responses captured in the meeting transcript.
Click here for full details
Number four on ICANN’s list of top priorities in the organization’s three year strategic plan is improving the confidence in the gTLD marketplace by making sure registries and registrars operate in accordance with their contracts and ICANN policies. Captured in this initiative is the goal to “introduce methods for protecting registrant from abuse of their registrations and preventing the registration of fraudulent sites.” By assuring adequate protection measures in the New gTLD process, and taking action to improve some existing problem areas, ICANN should be able to score a few confidence points.
See the entire ICANN strategic plan
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