IRT meeting London

[Konstantinos Komaitis]

Dear all,

Just back from the IRT meeting in London and let me share briefly with you
what happened (very dizzy after so many hours on the train).

As in NY, the whole morning was spent at presentations by the IRT panel,
WIPO, ICANN and some individuals; that took us to lunch and after that the
panel gave the floor for statements/questions.

Presentations: the IRT panel seemed to be toning down a bit and I think that
had to do with the reaction they received in NY. They said of course the
same things over and over again and how great the report is, but they made
it clear that this report does not represent the views of ICANN (implying
that we should not target ICANN) and that also we need to remember the short
time-frame within which the team operated.
Richard Tindal of Demand Media spoke against most of the report. So did,
Paul Keating, who focused on the URS and slammed it down.

Then the statements came. Many of the people who grabbed the microphone were
in favour of the report ­ the Danish law society, Nestle, some Registrars,
etc. Nothing surprising there; what was surprising ­ to me at least ­ was
the reaction that I received during our statement statement. I was abruptly
interrupted by Jeff Neuman, who asked whether it was necessary to read the
NCUC statement, since it was along the same lines as Kathy¹s in New York. Of
course, I continued reading the statement telling Jeff that the panel might
be the same as in NY but the audience is not; more questions came from the
ICANN staff as well as from Fabricio Vayra about our statement (mainly about
the IP Clearinghouse and GPML). After many interruptions, I finally managed
to get through the whole thing.

Rebecca gave a great statement as did some other people (John Levine for
instance). Overall, I realized that the IRT team is at a great advantage.
Hearing them speaking, I though that if I didn¹t know any better, I would
think that they are doing a great job under difficult circumstances. That is
how the public saw it at least. We need to continue with this fight and we
need to get as many voices as possible. In London there were not enough and
the IRT is gaining ground.

The good news is that I was approached by a reporter who wants to do a piece
on it for the forthcoming issue of World Trademark Review (mainly targeting
trademark lawyers) and I had a brief exchange of email with a guy from the
economist who also showed some interest. I will let you know about these two
things.

Thank you.

Best
Konstantinos

Statement:

Good afternoon. My name is Konstantinos Komaitis and I am here both in my
capacity as an academic with research experience in domain name regulation
and as a member of ICANN¹s Non-Commercial User Constituency. Above all,
however, I am here as a registrant who has serious concerns about this
report and how it makes all non-commercial users look bad.

Here are in brief our concerns:
IP Clearinghouse: it falls outside the scope and mission of ICANN. Putting
ICANN in charge of this massive database, transmogrifies and gives
privileges to ICANN currently enjoyed by national trademark offices. It is
of great concern that in the years to come this database could be abused
and/or misused against future domain name registrants. The idea is valuable
but its presentation is problematic. Over the past ten years, the market has
shown that it can provide solutions ­ and this is one need that we can trust
the market to meet.
GPML: it changes the face of traditional trademark law. Currently, there is
no international consensus on which marks are worthy of global protection
and WIPO has refrained from producing such list. The list seeks to protect
marks not according to their associated goodwill, as has always been the
case in trademark law, but merely as strings of characters regardless of use
or relevance. This is not what trademark law is about.
URS: is a dangerous provision and can set a treacherous precedent. It should
be expected that the URS will replace the UDRP with a much faster, cheaper
and fundamentally unfair process. Similar to the current UDRP culture, the
URS is a process open to abuse and procedural injustice. The conceptual
basis and the language of the URS is reminiscent to the conceptual basis and
language of the UDRP ­ so why not amend the existing regime?
We also strongly oppose the thick WHOIS and the post-delegation dispute
mechanism, but I am running out of time.
The IRT report states: ³The recommendation should protect the existing
rights of trademark owners, but neither expand those rights nor create
additional legal rights². The IRT report does not conform with this; it
fails to see trademarks as limited rights as it fails to incentivize
registrants. On the contrary, it expands the rights of trademark owners
beyond their intended purpose.
Thank you.

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-- 
Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis,
Lecturer in Law,
GigaNet Membership Chair,
University of Strathclyde,
The Lord Hope Building,
141 St. James Road,
Glasgow, G4 0LT,
UK
tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306
email: k.komaitis at strath.ac.uk 

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