[council] draft suggestion for resolution

[Theresa Swinehart <Theresa.Swinehart@wcom.com>]

Hi -

In reviewing all the WG-B material for tomorrow's call, I got a creative
moment. So, went ahead and again put together a draft resolution to provide
something to work with and focus on during our conference call. Hopefully
folks find it helpful to get through our call more efficiently. Comments
welcome, no pride of authorship.

Theresa



The Names Council recognizes the enormous work undertaken by Working Group
B. The Names Council acknowledges that according to its final report,
Working Group B has reached consensus on three points, namely:

(1) Some type of mechanism, yet to be determined, is necessary in connection
with famous trademarks and the operation of the Domain Name System.

(2) There does not appear to be the need for the creation of a universally
famous marks list at this point in time.

(3) The protection afforded to trademark owners should depend upon the type
of top-level domains that are added to the root.

With regards to points (1) and (3), the NC notes that the Working Group
members could not reach consensus on the type of mechanism that should be
incorporated into the roll-out of new gTLDs (point (1)), which is
understandable given their consensus in point (3) that the protection should
vary depending on the type of top-level domain.  The NC concludes that there
is community consensus that there should be protections of intellectual
property, additional to those now in place for the .com, .net, and .org
top-level domains, during the startup phase of new top-level domains.  The
NC therefore makes a supplemental recommendation to the Board that, in
introducing new top-level domains as recommended by the NC on 18-19 April
2000, consideration be given to implementing procedures that afford
additional protection to intellectual property during the start-up phase.
In the case of the initial introduction of top-level domains as contemplated
in the 18-19 April recommendation, this consideration should be done in
connection with the overall consideration of specific proposals for new
top-level domains, which will allow for use of different mechanisms in the
case of different types of top-level domains.  The NC observes that
agreements between private parties, such  as reflected in the Sunrise
Principles, are examples of consensual  solutions that are one means of
providing additional protection.

With regards to item (2) on universally famous marks, the NC notes that the
proposed creation of a list of universally or globally famous trademarks has
engendered very significant controversy in the community.  The NC therefore
concludes that there is no consensus in the community at the present time
that such a list should be adopted by ICANN.

The NC also recommends to the ICANN board that it take note of the Working
Group B report, including the submissions by participating parties. The NC
notes that Working Group B has brought to light the scope beyond merely
domain names that the famous trademarks issue raises. Therefore, the NC
strongly recommends to the ICANN Board make clear that nothing in the
general consensus items, or areas of non-consensus should be construed as
creating immunity from the UDRP or other legal proceeding should a domain
name registrant in a chartered top-level domain violate the charter or other
legal enforceable rights.

The NC would like to express its gratitude to the hard work of Michael D.
Palage, Katherine Kleiman, and Philip Sheppard in steering the Working Group
and seeking to guide them towards consensus on the difficult set of issues
they were assigned.