Letter from Francis Gurry Model Rules for Administrative Procedure Concerning Abusive Domain Name Registrations

From:	( Arbiter.Mail ) [mailto:arbiter.mail@wipo.int]
Sent:	Friday, August 13, 1999 11:58 AM
To:	jse@adamspat.com; usadrmfh@adr.org; jimbramson@aol.com;
registrars@dnso.org; psbar@hanson-molloy.com; mclaughlin@icann.org;
Roberts@icann.org; arbsg@iccwbo.org; mpalage@ipwarehouse.com;
louis_l._touton@jonesday.com; froomkin@law.miami.edu;
mm@lcia-arbitration.com; daveg@netsol.com; bburr@ntia.doc.gov;
krose@ntia.doc.gov; carl@oppedahl.com; jcohen@shapirocohen.com; Arif Ali;
Christopher Gibson; David Muls; Erik Wilbers; Francis Gurry
Cc:	lgaviser@register.com; rrodin@skadden.com; slevi@skadden.com
Subject:


The registrars and other interested parties who participated in the meeting
convened in Washington D.C. on July 27, 1999 recognized the importance of
basic uniformity both of the Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy under
discussion at that meeting and of the procedural rules that are necessary to
give effect to the Policy.
To help facilitate this result, we hereby submit for your consideration a
possible set of Model Rules for Administrative Procedure Concerning Abusive
Domain Name Registrations.
While taking as their point of departure the rules that were recommended in
the Report of the WIPO Internet Domain Name Process, the attached draft
Model Rules are specifically designed to support the Policy document on
which registrar consensus now appears to be emerging, and to take account of
new procedural suggestions that were made by registrars and other parties.
We agree that, for a Policy to be effective, it must be matched by basic
uniformity in the Rules.  For example, absent an efficient timeframe common
to all dispute resolution service providers, proceedings could be allowed to
become protracted, thus frustrating the purpose of the Policy.
At the same time, uniformity should not extend so far as to prevent
registrars and parties from being able to benefit from competition among
dispute resolution service providers.  Thus, registrars should be free to
decide which provider(s) they wish to include in their Policy.  Providers
should individually set the level of the fees that apply to proceedings
conducted under their rules and should individually decide the composition
of their list of panelists.
We welcome your comments on the attached draft Model Rules, which may in any
case have to undergo some further changes to keep track with the consensus
Policy in its final form.
With best wishes,

Yours sincerely,


Francis Gurry
Assistant Director-General
World Intellectual Property Organization
Geneva, Switzerland