[IPC-GNSO] RFP for TMCH independent review

[Greg Shatan]

All,

The announcement below should be of interest to members of the IPC.  If any
of you know of any candidates who would be interested and qualified for
this project, you should refer them to the RFP.



​Greg



https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2015-08-07-en
------------------------------
Request for Proposal for the Independent Review of the Trademark
Clearinghouse

7 August 2015

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (“ICANN”) is
seeking one or more provider(s) to conduct an independent review of the
Trademark Clearinghouse to assess the effectiveness of three key areas
related to the Clearinghouse in meeting its intended objectives and to
identify considerations for future application rounds of the New gTLD
Program. The three key areas for examination in this review include: (a)
Trademark Clearinghouse Guidelines and Verification Process; (b) Sunrise
Period; and (c) Trademark Claims Service. The selected provider(s) will
design and execute a study to create a meaningful report of quantitative
and qualitative data on the specified areas for examination. The draft
Report will be posted for comment and updated based on the feedback
received. The final report will be published and provided to the
Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) for review and consideration. ICANN
is seeking one or more qualified providers to manage this complex exercise
in a timely and efficient manner.

ICANN anticipates a contract to be signed and work to begin with the
selected provider(s) no later than October 2015.

Based on the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) recommendation
<https://archive.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/gac-comments-new-gtlds-26may11-en.pdf>
in May 2011 for a comprehensive post-launch independent review of the
Clearinghouse to be conducted one year after the launch of the 75th new
gTLD in the round, ICANN has pledged to undertake a review to assess
processes pertaining to the Clearinghouse in conjunction with the specified
areas for review proposed by the GAC. The GAC recommended areas for review
should examine whether the aims, functionality and operations of the
Clearinghouse would benefit from extending the period of the Clearinghouse
notifications beyond the 90 days and whether the automated system should
allow the inclusion of non-exact matches.

In addition, this review will incorporate a thorough assessment of the
effectiveness of TMCH related processes in meeting their intended rights
protection objectives. It is expected that the independent review will help
identify other issues for evaluation that should be included in the
analysis of the Trademark Clearinghouse, such as issues that could be
addressed in policy development work in the community. Furthermore, it is
anticipated the review will help inform the discussion and enable
consideration of the rights protection mechanisms available in the domain
name space.

As the Trademark Clearinghouse was developed to support rights protection
mechanisms and serve a large ecosystem of Trademark Holders and Trademark
Agents, registries, registrars, as well as registrants, the study must be
able to capture inputs in a representative manner from across the multitude
of players relevant to the new domain namespace.

For additional information and instructions for submitting responses please
click here
<https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/rfp-tmch-independent-review-07aug15-en.zip>
[ZIP, 612 KB].

Proposals should be submitted to TMCHIndependentReview-RFP at icann.org by
23:59 UTC on 28 August 2015.
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