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ICANN and Governance, New gTLDs

Trademark Clearinghouse Update With Contract And Strawman Solution Nearing Agreement

ICANN New TLDs logoAs ICANN continues to negotiate a contract on the operation of the Trademark Clearinghouse with IBM and Deloitte, the organisation’s CEO and president Fadi Chehadé has given an update on the ICANN blog as to the status of its development following meetings in Brussels and Los Angeles in recent weeks.

The contract being negotiated which would see IBM provide database services and Deloitte would provide validation services.

In an overview of the negotiations, Chehadé writes that:

  • ICANN retains all intellectual property rights in the Trademark Clearinghouse data.
  • Deloitte’s validation services are to be non-exclusive. ICANN may add additional validators after a threshold of minimum stability is met.
  • Trademark submission fees are capped at US$150 per record. Discounts are available for bulk & multi-year submissions.
  • IBM will charge Deloitte for database access via an application processing interface (API), and will charge registries and registrars for real-time access to the database during the sunrise and claims periods.
  • ICANN may audit Deloitte’s performance (and revenues/costs) to confirm that the costs and fees for validation services are reasonable.

Also covered is the “Strawman Solution” with Chehadé noting:
As promised, we reviewed each of the elements of the strawman solution to identify a way forward, paying special attention to determining whether each properly belonged in a policy or implementation process. We did not find that any element of the strawman was inconsistent with the policy advice from GNSO recommendation 3: Strings must not infringe the existing legal rights of others that are recognized or enforceable under generally accepted and internationally recognized principles of law. However, the analysis of the various elements yielded different recommended steps for consideration.

Further information on Sunrise Notice Requirement, Trademark Claims and the Scope of Trademark Claims are given in the posting on the ICANN blog here. ICANN will also be posting the strawman model for public comment this week, and Chehadé will ask the GNSO Council for guidance on the Scope of Trademark Claims.