Patrick Vande Walle comments on the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) report released last week. The IRT was formed by ICANN’s Intellectual Property Constituency in accordance with an ICANN Board resolution. The resolution was in response to the request by the community seeking solutions for potential issues for trademark holders in the implementation of new gTLDs.Vande Walle has some concerns with the report recommendations. One point he makes is on the reliance of email for notifications for the Uniform Rapid Suspension system, however email is both unreliable and liable to being caught in spam filters he notes. Vande Walle also suggests that is the notification is only in English, this could cause problems if the registrant is unfamiliar with English.Another point is “if the domain name is indeed found to infringe on someone else’s IP rights by the third-party complaints examiner, ‘The third-party provider will post a standard page on the domain name,’ however not every domain name resolves to a website.There is also legal uncertainty even if “a registrant has successfully passed a URS examination” as there is still the prospect of a UDRP complaint and legal action. And as a URS complaint can be filed at any time, there is also the issue of the uncertainty of developing a business knowing your domain name is liable to a complaint at any time.For individual registrants, Vande Walle notes not every registrant is online every day to receive complaints about their domain name, and it is feasible many registrants will not check emails at times for periods of more than once per fortnight.There are also some suggestions for improvements including certified/registered paper mail for notification, notifications in the registrant’s native language, differentiate between individual private persons and legal entities, making the suspended domain names unresolvable by the DNS, a time limit on the introduction of a URS complaint and complainants should elect for a URS or a UDRP but not both.To read the full article by Patrick Vande Walle in Circle ID, see:
www.circleid.com/posts/20090603_irt_final_report_icann_uniform_rapid_suspension/