On the eve of ICANN’s 45th public meeting in Toronto — the last such meeting for the next half year until the April 2013 Beijing event — the United States government has urged ICANN to consider adding new trademark protections at .com and other incumbent gTLDs, and to adopt a Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) model that includes a default judgment …
ICANN Not Currently Planning to Place URS Providers Under Contract
On Wednesday, October 3rd ICANN held a ninety-minute webinar on implementation of the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) rights protection mechanism (RPM) for new gTLDs. More than a hundred individuals participated. In response to a question posed by ICA Counsel Philip Corwin, ICANN executive Kurt Pritz stated that ICANN was looking to the current UDRP model, in which ICANN accredits arbitration …
ICA Counsel to Speak at Toronto Conference on “ICANN & Internet Governance: Security and Freedom in a Connected World”
ICA Counsel Philip Corwin has been invited to speak at an all-day conference being convened by ICANN’s Noncommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) on Friday, October 12th. The event will take place at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel one day in advance of opening policy discussions at ICANN’s upcoming 45th public meeting in Toronto. The NCUC is the home for civil society …
ICANN to Hold October 3rd URS Webinar
On October 3rd, at 1500 UTC, ICANN will hold a publicly accessible webinar on the further development of the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) rights protection mechanism (RPM) for new gTLDs. The announcement of the webinar can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-6-24sep12-en.htm; those wishing to participate should send an e-mail to newgtldcommunications@icann.org to obtain call-in and web access details. URS is the …
ICANN Issues RFI for URS
On September 24th ICANN issued a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit bids from potential Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) providers. The announcement can be found at http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-8-24sep12-en.htm and a link is provided to the RFI itself. Qualified arbitration providers have until November 20th to submit a response, and ICANN hopes to publish a list of selected providers by February …
First, Do No HARM
Is it really less than a week ago that Melbourne IT (MIT) hosted a Washington, DC forum on “Trademarks and New gTLDs”? The calendar says that it was, but intervening events make the discussion that took place feel outdated already — given that the one item on which there was clear consensus among almost all event participants (ICANN moving forward …
URS Implementation Finally to Commence Under GNSO Direction
For more than a year ICA has been asking ICANN when it will commence with the task of implementing the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) policy for the new gTLD program as it currently stands in the Applicant Guidebook (AG). The URS is a required rights protection mechanism (RPM) that must be in place before any new gTLDs can open, and …
Brand Owners Want to Rev Up RPMs
On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 5th ICA attended a meeting on rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) for new gTLDs held at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington. About 40 persons attended in person, with another half dozen connected by phone, and almost all of them were from law firms, trade associations, corporations, and consultancies representing major brand interests. ICA …
DOJ/ICE Domain Seizures Questioned by U.S. House Members
On August 30th three members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano raising questions about the legality and methodology of the Operations In Our Sites domain seizure program jointly launched by those Cabinet Departments in November 2010. The letter (available at http://lofgren.house.gov/images/Letter_to_AG_Holder_083012.pdf ) was signed by …
Melbourne IT Plans to Bring HARM to DC
Melbourne IT’s involvement with ICANN dates back to 1999, when ICANN awarded it one of the first five registrar licenses to compete with the then-monopoly of Network Solutions Inc. in registering domain names under .com, .net and .org. It remains in the top tier of Internet registrars today, with 4.5 million domains under management. It is also involved with several …