[Npoc-discuss] Important Domain Name topic not to be discussed on NPOC Members Call | 21 May 2015 | 1500 UTC

[Sam Lanfranco]

All,

I want to keep today's NPOC Members call focused on the agreed agenda 
and don’t want to spend online call time on this issue now.
So, I am sharing a question I am working up for NPOC to put before the 
ICANN board. I will share the final version of the question and evidence 
here on npoc-discuss later.

The question is:

/How can ICANN protect the integrity of the ownership of domain names 
when a growing number of multilateral treaty organizations have their 
own internal intellectual property dispute resolution processes and are 
not obliged to respect ICANN’s terms of ownership and dispute resolution 
processes?/

The exhibit to illustrate this concern is the recent WTO dispute 
resolution panel (one person) who took the ownership of trumpcard.com 
(registered in 2009) and gave it to Donald Trump’s companies on the 
grounds that Donald Trump, the U.S. serial entrepreneur with gambline 
interests, registered "Trumpcard" as a trademark in 2011 – two years 
later. The trademark with for a credit card venture. Now trumpcard.com 
simply auto directs one’s browser to the creditcard application page.

The English word trumpcard, related to games of chance, has been in use 
for 700 years. The domain owner was using the trukmpcard.com site to 
direct players to various online gambling sites, and doing nothing 
illegal or contrary to ICANN terms ownership. If ICANN has no status in 
protecting the legitimate ownership of domain names, ICANN and domain 
name owners face a major problem. I am hoping that the ICANN board will 
have a comment on this issue.

Sam Lanfranco, Chair
NPOC Policy Committee

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