Dear All,

The PRO WG has decided to undertake a questionnaire to solicit views on 
existing rights protection mechanisms.  The questionnaire is online  --
> https://www.bigpulse.com/692i
> >
It proved highly controversial in the WG, not least due to concerns as to 
methodology --with Bruce Tonkin eventually pointing out it could not be 
styled as a survey, as originally proposed, due to its failure to meet 
accepted standards for neutral data gathering.

I refrained from input into this on the basis that it would be better to 
have distance from it so be able to balance the results in a minority
report or similar.

The concern is that the other constituencies will have members complete it 
in great numbers and that majority views will preempt the work of the WG.

As one particiapnt of the WG said:

"I personally believe the results of the questionnaire will show that:


1)       Trademark owners and businesses believe some sort intellectual
property rights mechanism is needed in the introduction of new gTLDs.

2)       Any mechanism that is introduced should take all steps possible to
minimize fraudulent or abusive domain name registrations during the launch
process.

3)       Each of the processes introduced prior, whether Sunrise or IP
claim, had issues with their implementation and these issues need to be
resolved for any future launch.  Implementation issues involve (a)
verification of claims/registrations, (b) dispute resolution mechanisms, (c)
which marks are deserving of protections, etc.

4)       Registries believe that the existing mechanisms are too costly
(both in terms of business, operations, support and legal) and present a
burden to introducing new gTLDs.

5)       Defensive Registrations are issues both to trademark owners and to
domain name registries.  For trademark owners and businesses, defensive
registrations can amount to a significant cost to their companies and to
registries, purely defensive registrations do nothing to enhance the utility
of the new TLD - they merely cerate a carbon copy of other TLDs.  Contrary
to what some believe IP Launch processes are not a boon to registries and
amount for a small insignifanct portion of the total domains registered in a
particular TLD."

We have in any event been asked to circulate this to our constituencies and
members.  I'd be grateful for any thoughts as to how the NCUC might want to
deal with it.

Best, Victoria