A meeting on the IRT Report

[Kathy Kleiman]

All,
Konstantinos and I wanted to share some notes from a meeting we had with
ICANN Senior Staff Kurt Pritz and Doug Brent last Friday.
It was a fascinating and very worthwhile meeting. It took place in
Washington DC, and Konstantinos joined us by videoconferencing.

Konstantinos and I wanted to share with ICANN some of our views as
experts in the field who have analyzed the IRT Report closely and
consulted widely with NCUC members, ALAC, Registrars, Registrant
Attorneys and IRT members. Konstantinos wrote his dissertation on the
UDRP and its impact inside and outside of ICANN, and is currently
writing a book on Domain Name Regulation. I have represented registrants
in domain name disputes since 1996. We made sure everyone knew we were
there in our personal capacities.

We discussed why were there (3 reasons):

A. We feel there are important voices not heard in full in the IRT
discussion -- including noncommercial, educational, research, academic,
entrepreneur, organizational, hobbyist and small businesses.

B. We support new gTLDs - New gTLds promise to open up bold new
opportunities for speech and communication, diversity and distinction.
The same words, used in different contexts online, will easily serve
different markets and community segments.

C. We feel Innovative Solutions are critical to getting the rules right
for new gTLDs - Our hope: that the new rules proposed for trademark
protection in the new gTLDs reflect the balance of trademark law... and
do not extend into the new gTLDs an artificial scarcity and a protection
of unrelated legacy rights.


We discussed trademark law and traditional limits and protections of
free speech, fair use and the right of all to use basic dictionary words
and their own surnames.


We then provided ideas for improvement:

(A) A few private, regional Trademark Clearinghouses, rather than a
single monolithic clearinghouse of vague and unverified "intellectual
property."

(B) Deep GPML criticisms and deep concerns that the results of ICANN
creating such a list (when even WIPO cannot) will expand trademark
rights beyond any existing bounds, both in ICANN and outside of ICANN.
There is no global consensus on famous marks.

(C)  Close URS analysis -- we showed how many of the concerns driving
the creation of the URS, a completely parallel system to the UDRP (and
one which replace it) can best we addressed by other means -- namely,
criminal law for fraud, phishing, fake medicines, etc. There are already
criminal takedown procedures in place- and ones in the process of being
created!

We suggested that URS be modified by:

   1.

      Convening a full UDRP forum to address everyone's issues and
      concerns on a fair playing field;

   2.

      Adopt suggestion of Registrant Attorney Paul Keating, namely,
      revise the UDRP for new gTLDs to allow Respondents to decide if
      they want to defend the domain name, or transfer it immediately.

   3.

      Narrow the URS to the real concern of the large trademark owners:
      serial cybersquatting, including the registration of hundreds of
      variations of well-known marks for the purpose of pay-per-click
      monetizing of the value.


Attached are three mini-White Papers that Dr. Komaitis and I wrote and
shared. They are about the IRT requests, their dangers and problems, and
options/innovative solutions explored in greater detail.

Kurt and Doug listened carefully, and engaged us with some excellent
questions. We urge you to follow-up with the ICANN staff and share your
ideas and concerns -- and anything you might agree with in these papers!


Best,
Kathy and Konstantinos


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20090810/081c02d2/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IP Clearinghouse White Paper.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 60029 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20090810/081c02d2/attachment.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: GPML White Paper.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 85088 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20090810/081c02d2/attachment-0001.pdf>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: URS White Paper.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 106152 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.ncuc.org/pipermail/ncuc-discuss/attachments/20090810/081c02d2/attachment-0002.pdf>