Hi All,
I promised a follow-up to my email of
11/4 and an update of our work (the NCSG STI drafting team) on the
URS & Trademark Clearinghouse process.
I wanted to share what happened after our NCSG meeting of Tuesday in Seoul.... When we had arrived in Seoul, we weren't sure of the atmosphere we would find. As you know, at the prior Sydney meeting had been very confrontational: we (many members of NCUC) felt that there were one-sided papers making their way through ICANN – and that the rights and concerns of registrants were not being taken into account. We feared for the future of domain names held by human rights groups, small noncommercial organizations, and individuals. And we said so.
By the time we reached Seoul, we felt listened to. The Board had drafted a letter to the GNSO Council sending back the proposed Trademark Clearinghouse and Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) back to the GNSO for review – but a very fast review!
The question for me, as we entered Seoul was: would a fast review be possible and would everyone come to table?
As I discussed in my last email, at our
NCSG Constituency meeting, we spent a lot of time drafting principles
for our work. Those principles included protecting registrants, but
also protecting noncommercial organizations which hold trademarks and
need protection as well. It was good work.
On Wednesday,October 28th, I had the privilege of delivering our NCSG position in a big session called “Trademark Protection in new gTLDs.” I thought very carefully about what I wanted to say – how much I wanted to share our positions and principles – and how much I wanted to invite everyone to come to the table -- to speak and to negotiate.
On the panel, we first talked first about the Clearinghouse, and then the URS. Differences were clear, but it still wasn't clear we could negotiate with each other. I concluded my remarks with these thoughts:
“And as a final
note -- and I wanted to share this with everyone as
we go through the
new mechanisms -- we in the NCUC want to work with
you. We want to
establish common ground, and we wish the best of
luck for all of us
in this expedited process.”
How would those thoughts – and that invitation-- be accepted? I can tell you that I truly had no idea what the response would be.
During Q&A
session, when the
microphones were opened, we learned the response.
Zahid Jamil, a leader of the Business
Constituency, responded:
“First of all, I
would like to acknowledge and thank
Kathy for the
NCUC's constructive invitation to work with goodwill.
We look forward to
the sentiment continuing in the GNSO. So thank
you for that.”
Also, J. Scott
Evans, new President of the Intellectual Property Constituency spoke:
“I worked with Kathy Kleiman, and we
drafted the UDRP final version with
Louis Touton and a group of other
talented people, many of whom are
here today. **** We want to work with registries,
registrars, NCUC. That's what we're
here for. We're problem solvers. We
want to solve the problem.
Thank you for the opportunity, and we
look forward to working
together in the near future.
[Applause]”
And that was it – everyone came to
the table to talk: Registrars, Registries, Business, NCSG,
Intellectual Property.
And the STI Drafting team has been
talking ever since – almost nonstop! Your faithful STI drafting
team members -- Wendy, Konstantinos, Robin and I – have been on
constant phone calls, teleconferences and email since we returned from
Seoul. Some calls are with
the entire STI drafting team and others with smaller groups. We
are all investigating, questioning, negotiating and probing – all the
stakeholder members. We are working together.
So that's the current update. In our next STI email, Konstantinos will share the NCSG position statement we circulated today, reflecting our ideas and priorities, and his thoughts on the process and progress.
Best,
Kathy
p.s. Attached is the transcript. Also available are the slides prepared and presented by Board member and panel moderator Bruce Tonkin, the audio, and additional panel materials at the ICANN website -- http://sel.icann.org/node/7116