By Philip S. Corwin, ICA Counsel The 59th ICANN meeting was held in Johannesburg, South Africa from June 25th to 29th. Under ICANN’s new meeting schedule this mid-year gathering is the somewhat shorter “B” session devoted to intensive policy development work. This report details my engagement as ICA Counsel on your behalf and current and expected benefits to ICA members. …
Surge in RDNH cases a legacy of the theory of Retroactive Bad Faith
What do these Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) filings have in common? — Dreamlines GmbH, a German cruise promoter, files a UDRP dispute on dreamlines.com, a domain registered 10 years before that company was formed. They do not allege any infringing use. Cognate Nutritionals, Inc., a Connecticut beverage company, which sells a coconut oil brain supplement under the brand “Fuel …
UDRP: Better Late than Never – ICA Applauds WIPO for Removing Misguided ‘Retroactive Bad Faith’
The Internet Commerce Association (ICA), a non-profit trade group representing the domain industry, applauds the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for removing misleading guidance from the newly released updated version 3.0 of its Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions that in the previous version had granted undeserved legitimacy to a misconstruction of the UDRP commonly known as …
The Rise and Fall of the UDRP Theory of ‘Retroactive Bad Faith’
Since its establishment in 1999, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy has required complainants to prove inter alia, “bad faith registration”. In practice, this has meant that where a domain name was registered before a trademark came into existence, that “bad faith registration” would be considered chronologically impossible.
URS is MIA in .Net Renewal RA
The Proposed Renewal of the .Net Registry Agreement (RA) was published for public comment by ICANN on April 20th. The biggest surprise about the proposed contract is how little it differs from the current one between ICANN and Verisign. Conspicuously absent from the agreement is the new gTLD rights protection mechanism (RPM) of Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS). For the past …
ICA Supports ICANN Transparency Improvements
ICA fully supported the insistence of ICANN’s community that the IANA Transition had to be accompanied by substantial improvements in ICANN Accountability. Some of those improvements were deemed to be necessary preconditions to the Transition. They included substantial revisions of ICANN’s Bylaws to reflect new community powers, such as the ability to veto budgets or remove Board members. Those were …
A Complaint about ICANN’s New Complaints Office
ICA has long been on record that it was an inappropriate usurpation of the GNSO’s policymaking role for ICANN Global Domain Division (GDD) staff to be urging legacy gTLD registry operators to adopt Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) in the course of renewal negotiations for their registry agreements (RAs). That’s because the URS was adopted as an “implementation detail” for new …
ICA Supports Retention of Court Access for Registrants in IGO UDRPs
ICA has just filed its comment letter supporting all five recommendations contained in the GNSO Initial Report on the IGO-INGO Access to Curative Rights Protection Mechanisms Policy Development Process. ICA Counsel Philip Corwin is Co-Chair of the Working Group (WG) that prepared this Report, issued after two years of extensive research into the underlying legal and policy issues. From the …
ICA Concerns Heard — Copyright UDRP on Indefinite Hold
Executive Summary: The Copyright UDRP proposal unveiled two weeks ago in the Domain Name Association’s Healthy Domains Initiative has been placed on indefinite hold and is unlikely to be revived as a DNA initiative. Public Interest Registry announced on February 23rd that it was pausing its development of the plan and will not revive it absent further notice. One day …
ICA DEEPLY CONCERNED WITH PROPOSAL TO ENABLE DOMAIN TRANSFERS BASED UPON COPYRIGHT CLAIMS
On Wednesday, our fellow trade association, the Domain Name Association (DNA), announced the rollout of its “Healthy Domains Initiative” (HDI). The ICA joins the DNA in seeking solutions for stopping online abuse. However, the ICA is particularly concerned about its proposed remedy to combat online copyright infringement. The HDI proposes to establish a “Copyright ADRP” with the power to order …