[IDN-WG] Draft Statement on TMCH and Variants

Rinalia Abdul Rahim rinalia.abdulrahim at gmail.com
Thu Apr 11 04:23:21 UTC 2013


Dear Hong,

In brief:

Based on a "temperature check" by the ALAC Chair, there was a consensus
that the ALAC would support advocacy on this very important issue in
principle.  A short statement of support will be presented during the
public forum today by the ALAC, advising the Board that the issue is of
great concern to the ALAC and that a formal statement will be issued.

The formal statement based on your draft will be amended to incorporate
some suggested additions, and the ALAC will vote upon the statement once
the amendments have been made and tabled for ALAC comments and approval
(realistically, after Beijing).  I will take the responsibility of editing
the draft and I will ensure that the statement gets finalized and voted
upon shortly after Beijing.

Thank you so very much for bringing this issue to the ALAC's attention and
for preparing the excellent draft.

Best regards,

Rinalia


On Thu, Apr 11, 2013 at 12:11 PM, Hong Xue <hongxueipr at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi, Rinalia, kindly let me know what was the decision from ALAC at the
> wrap-up? Or, no movement at all?
>
> Hong
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:40 PM, Rinalia Abdul Rahim <
> rinalia.abdulrahim at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear Hong,
>>
>> Thank you for this extensive draft statement for the ALAC's
>> consideration.  The discovery that the Trademark Clearing House (TMCH) does
>> not address IDN variants is distressing, particularly for the Chinese case
>> given its unique variant situation.  By way of copying Avri, I am asking
>> her about the possibility of a joint statement on this issue and the time
>> frame the new gTLD WG might require to review the draft. In my opinion it
>> would certainly strengthen the case if it is a joint WG statement.
>>
>> Given the substantive content of this draft, it is possible that the ALAC
>> may ask for additional information and time to consider the draft and to
>> comment.  Let's see what Avri thinks and what the ALAC would say tomorrow.
>>
>> It would be good if you are able to attend the ALAC wrap-up meeting
>> tomorrow (Thursday 9-11am) to brief the ALAC about the draft. I expect
>> statement approvals will be addressed under agenda item 4 on ALAC Action.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Rinalia
>>  On Apr 10, 2013 10:19 PM, "Hong Xue" <hongxueipr at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  Dear All,
>>>
>>> Please find below my draft statement. I'd appreciate for your quick
>>> review
>>> and feedback.
>>>
>>> I was the drafter of the New gTLD WG Statement on TMCH. Shall we also
>>> forward the draft to that WG to make it a joint submission to ALAC?
>>>
>>> Best,
>>>
>>> Hong
>>>
>>> _________________________________________________
>>>
>>> At-Large Statement on Trademark Clearinghouse and IDN Variants
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> At-large community is very disappointed at the implementation model
>>> outlined by “Trademark Clearinghouse: Rights Protection Mechanism
>>> Requirements” (hereafter “Requirements’) published on April 6, 2013.
>>> Particularly, the model completely overlooks the critical issues of IDN
>>> variants with respect to trademark clearinghouse (TMCH) and as a result
>>> would seriously impact the public interest in the pertinent user
>>> communities.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> According to the Requirements, *matching domain name labels will be
>>>
>>> generated for each Trademark Record in accordance with the Trademark
>>> Clearinghouse’s domain name matching rules*.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The matching rules at the TMCH obviously, however, fail to take into
>>> account the trademarks in IDN scripts involving variants, although the
>>> variant issues had been raised by the language community experts at the
>>> Implementation Assistant Group (IAG).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Variant matching is actually critical for certain language communities.
>>> Take Chinese for example, where a trademark holder merely registers a
>>> simplified word-mark but not its traditional equivalence, there will only
>>> be one trademark record generated in the TMCH. Since the new gTLD
>>> registries are obliged to offer sunrise services and trademark claims for
>>> the trademarks recorded in the TMCH, only that simplified word-mark will
>>> be
>>> eligible for sunrise registration and trademark claim services and leaves
>>> the traditional equivalence open for cybersquatting. Since both writings
>>> of
>>> the word-mark are deemed identical in the Chinese community and few
>>> trademarks are registered in both writings, ruling out the un-registered
>>> writing would make TMCH completely useless to Chinese trademarks.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> What is even more striking is that the Requirements specifically
>>> prohibits
>>> any registry from implementing *variant or bundling rules* and allocating
>>> domain names *under such variant or bundling rules prior to the
>>>
>>> conclusionof the Sunrise Period.
>>> * Such restriction actually excludes any solution for IDN trademarks
>>> involving variants to be accommodated in the sunrise period at the TLD
>>> level, even though a registry is willing fix the variants through its
>>> registration management and at its own costs.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Trademarks have very important function of safeguarding public interests
>>> by
>>> identifying the source of goods or services. The malfunctioned TMCH
>>> design
>>> would cause serious public confusion and market chaos. Although at-large
>>> community never supports over-extensive trademark measures, ICANN should
>>> treat all the trademarks equally, irrespective of the characters of the
>>> trademarks, and protect the users in all language communities from
>>> confusion equally.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> At-Large community has made the statement on the Trademark Clearinghouse
>>> (TMCH) in September 2012, in which at-large community concerns that the
>>> design of TMCH model that uniformly applies to all the gTLD registries,
>>> irrespective of their difference, may not provide the tailored services
>>> that are really needed by the new gTLD registries. At-large community
>>> suggested that “more open and flexible model deserves further
>>> exploration.”
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> The Chinese Internet user community, dating back to October 2011,
>>> suggested
>>> that IDN-script trademarks involving variants should be taken into
>>> account
>>> in the TMCH services and ICANN consider adopting community-based solution
>>> to address this issue. Many other language communities shared the views
>>> of
>>> Chinese community.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Unfortunately, ICANN has been deaf to the user community’s feedback and
>>> inputs and moves steadily toward the centralized, inflexible and
>>> variants-unfriendly TMCH. At-large community, therefore, strongly
>>> suggests
>>> that ICANN support community-based TLD-bottom-up solution for TMCH
>>> implementation and address the IDN variant issue before TMCH provides the
>>> services to the new gTLD registries.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Professor Dr. Hong Xue
>>> Director of Institute for the Internet Policy & Law (IIPL)
>>> Beijing Normal University
>>> http://www.iipl.org.cn/
>>> 19 Xin Jie Kou Wai Street
>>> Beijing 100875 China
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> IDN-WG mailing list
>>> IDN-WG at atlarge-lists.icann.org
>>> https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/idn-wg
>>>
>>> IDN WG Wiki:
>>> https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/At-Large+IDN+Policy
>>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Professor Dr. Hong Xue
> Director of Institute for the Internet Policy & Law (IIPL)
> Beijing Normal University
> http://www.iipl.org.cn/
> 19 Xin Jie Kou Wai Street
> Beijing 100875 China
>


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