Hi,

The way I understand this, it is a delay of a few more months, but I do not think it is more than 2-3 months.  I.e. we are slipping by a quarter and not by another 3 quarters - horizon time has significant decreased.

I believe that the Board is saying that they are essentially ready to go, once the last comments from the comment period that just ended are taken into account and few other issues, like the Rec6, discussions are over ad it is time to move on to  deployment of the process.

On the other hand, they rejected certain bit of the GAC's advise.  According to the by-laws, when the Board rejects the GAC advise, it must enter a process defined by:

> j. The advice of the Governmental Advisory Committee on public policy matters shall be duly taken into account, both in the formulation and adoption of policies. In the event that the ICANN Board determines to take an action that is not consistent with the Governmental Advisory Committee advice, it shall so inform the Committee and state the reasons why it decided not to follow that advice. The Governmental Advisory Committee and the ICANN Board will then try, in good faith and in a timely and efficient manner, to find a mutually acceptable solution.
> 
> k. If no such solution can be found, the ICANN Board will state in its final decision the reasons why the Governmental Advisory Committee advice was not followed, and such statement will be without prejudice to the rights or obligations of Governmental Advisory Committee members with regard to public policy issues falling within their responsibilities.



On trademarks and other issues, the state of discussions is somewhat ambiguous.  I understood the Board in saying most issues are essentially closed, that decsion is the act the signifies the actual rejection of advice.  But since they have to consult in good faith, things could always change a bit.  Also since there is no defined process for trying " in good faith and in a timely and efficient manner, to find a mutually acceptable solution."  they must first figure out the process. And they owe a bunch of documentation.

Of course, as in all things, my understanding may be off.

a.

On 15 Dec 2010, at 09:51, Andrew A. Adams wrote:

> Have we heard anything official on this? See report below:
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/2bb4d3f
> 
> -- 
> Professor Andrew A Adams                      [log in to unmask]
> Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
> Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
> Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/