Dear all, - apologies for the long email - The time is upon us to submit our comments on the revised versions of the ICANN staff on the recommendations submitted by the Special Trademark Team (STI) in January 2010. I know that I should have submitted this to you earlier on, but may I remind everyone that the deadline is April 1, 2020 for the submission of comments. I would appreciate if you could return your comments/suggestions to me by tomorrow at the very latest. Here is a brief reminder of the whole process. After the rejection of the Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT) proposals during the public comment period, ICANN produced two documents - one of the Trademark Clearinghouse (TMC) and the other on the Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) system and asked the GNSO to form a team to review these documents. The GNSO created the STI, which comprised of representatives from all its constituencies. NCUC was represented in this team by Robin, Kathy, Wendy and myself, with Mary being the alternate member. The STI was tasked to either accept the Staff's proposals or reach consensus on a new set of proposals. After a month of extensive meetings and debate, we managed to produce two documents - one on the TMC and the other on the URS - which in their majority received the consensus of the STI (most of the particular issues of both proposals received unanimous consensus, whilst some specific issues received majority consensus). The final STI report can be found here: gnso.icann.org/issues/sti/sti-wt-recommendations-11dec09-en.pdf After the STI submitted its report and was endorsed by the GNSO, a public comment period was initiated - http://forum.icann.org/lists/sti-report-2009/. In the meantime, in its Nairobi meeting, the ICANN Board endorsed the STI's recommendations: http://www.icann.org/en/minutes/resolutions-12mar10-en.htm. Taking into account the public comments, the ICANN staff produced - what they called - a revised document on both proposals, seeking to take into consideration the STI recommendations as well as the comments received during the public comments period. These new revised proposals can be found at: for the TMC ( http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#tmc) and for the URS ( http://www.icann.org/en/public-comment/#urs) and they are now open for a public comments period. The deadline for submission of the comments is April 1, 2010. Generally speaking the revised proposal takes into consideration most of the issues that the STI recommended. However, there are some specific issues, in which the new recommendations are worst and additions have been made which are arbitrary and - at some instances - even illegitimate. I am attaching our comments for both the URS and the TMC. Best KK Dr. Konstantinos Komaitis, Law Lecturer, University of Strathclyde, The Law School, The Lord Hope Building, 141 St. James Road, Glasgow, G4 0LT UK tel: +44 (0)141 548 4306 http://www.routledgemedia.com/books/The-Current-State-of-Domain-Name-Regulation-isbn9780415477765 Selected publications: http://hq.ssrn.com/submissions/MyPapers.cfm?partid=501038 Website: http://domainnamelaw.ning.com/