IRT update and Board Letter!

[Konstantinos Komaitis]

Dear all,

In  preparation for Seoul, I would like to briefly share with you my reading
on the ICANN proposals on the URS and Trademark Clearinghouse ­ these have
been sent back to the GNSO. I also attach the letter instructing the GNSO to
work on these issues. We asked for this, so the work in Seoul will be
critical.

First, the GPML is completely gone ­ hurray.

The proposal on the clearinghouse takes most of our recommendations on
board. As Kathy and myself suggested, they changed the name to the more
restrictive Trademark Clearinghouse and addressed many of our concerns. The
proposal suggests two entities (one for validation purposes and the other
for maintenance and trademark watch services), which functions will be under
a limited charter, will have no discretionary powers and cannot create
policy. They also suggest reviews and communication between the
clearinghouse and trademark offices. There are certainly some other issues,
but on first reading it is much better than the original version.

The URS is a different story, it is much, much worse. It continues to limit
the rights of registrants, by sticking to short deadlines and expanding the
definition of default. Contrary to what Kathy and I have suggested, it does
not create a system for Œserial cybersquatting¹ and it is to be expected
that it will be gamed by the trademark community. A significant change is
that it loosens the criteria compared to the UDRP and makes it easier to get
a Œlock¹ decision.

That¹s it ­ just wanted to keep all of you informed. Seoul will be great,
and Kathy and myself are about to start working on the various issues. Input
welcome. I hope to see most of you in Seoul.

KK 
-- 
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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