During its regular monthly meeting on Thursday, May 12th, ICANN’s GNSO Council confirmed the appointment of ICA Counsel Philip S. Corwin to be a Co-Chair of the Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs PDP Working Group (WG). Corwin represents ICA on ICANN’s Business Constituency (BC) and is one of the BC’s two representatives on the Council.
Corwin is one of three Co-Chairs selected by the WG’s membership. The others two are:
- Scott Evans, trademark Counsel at Adobe, which he represents on the BC. He is also immediate Past President of the International Trademark Association (INTA), and former Chair of ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency IPC).
- Kathy Kleiman, an attorney at the Virginia-based firm of Fletcher, Heald and Hildreth, and an active member of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC).
The RPM Review will be conducted in two phases. In Phase One (expected to run through January of 2018), the WG will study the rights protection measures created for the new gTLD program, and also make recommendations regarding whether any changes should be made. That review will proceed in this order:
- the Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedures (PDDRPs);
- the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMCH) and the associated availability through the TMCH of Sunrise period registrations and the Trademark Claims notification service; and
- the Uniform Rapid Suspension system (URS)
After completion of Phase One, the WG will move on to Phase Two in which it will review and consider modifications of the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Consideration will also be given in this second phase to whether any of the new gTLD RPMs, including URS, should become Consensus Policies applicable to .Com and other legacy gTLDs.
Several ICA members have already joined the WG and other members of the domain investment community are encouraged to do so. ICA has also established its own internal working group to develop policy positions regarding the UDRP, including proposals for its modification, so that ICA’s positions are well developed by the time the Phase 2 UDRP review commences in early 2018.