[CWG-Stewardship] Letter of instruction from the CWG to ICANN regarding the IANA IPR Community Agreement.

[Andrew Sullivan]

Dear colleagues,

As usual, I note that I am a trustee of the IETF Trust, and I do not
wish anyone to understand that I am promoting any IETF or Trust
interest here.  But I am concerned that we not delay the transition by
organizational mmisunderstanding.  In particular,

On Sun, Sep 25, 2016 at 12:03:43AM +0200, Christopher Wilkinson wrote:
> 2.	I understand that the CCG has been 'created' to regulate the relationships between the Naming Community and the IETF Trust, thus the interest in IPR. 

I think it would be better to say that the CCG is being created to
ensure that each operational community's interests are properly
represented to the Trust, which will own the IPR.  The Trust is
undertaking to manage this IPR according to the needs and wishes of
the various communities, consistent with the Trust's responsibilities
in respect of the IPR.

> 3.	The leap from the IETF Trust to directing ICANN - as indicated in the draft Letter of Instruction - has not been explained. As far as I can see, the small number of delegates to the CCG (Representatives and Co-Chairs, including apparently ourselves) have no mandate to direct ICANN about anything. What is the eventual scope of these instructions?
>

The scope -- which I believe is already completely outlined in the
relevant documents for the IPR issues -- is to advise and direct the
Trust about the appropriate use of the IPR for a given community's
needs.  In the case of the names community, this necessarily involves
instructing both ICANN and PTI about specific uses of the IANA
trademarks and the iana.org domain name (and maybe some others, but
iana.org is the bit one).

> 4.	I would agree to your suggestion that some tutorials might be in order. If so, these should take place well before anything is finalised, and after public consultation (see 1. above)
>  	Thus it is perhaps premature to demand that ICANN accept the draft Letter of Instructions.

In my opinion, claiming that this is "premature" suggests that the
issues have not been completely vented in the CWG.  Given the amount
of time that's already been spent on this issue, I am a little worried
(not to say alarmed) at the suggestion that more time is needed.  The
IPR transfer and the resulting arrangements for each community need in
fact to be in place in a week, assuming the transition is to happen on
schedule.  I don't really understand why there could be any confusion
about this.

Best regards,

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan
ajs at anvilwalrusden.com