Minutes of the May 7, 2003 IPC meeting in Amsterdam

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2:07 launch of .pro – briefing from .pro representative.

There will be 2 types of defensive registrations:

• Pro block. 4 year pre-registration term. Valid for trademark holders only
• Pro guard. 4 year term also. Protects an individual’s name in law.pro (attorneys)
• Pro reserve. Same rules. Any professional is eligible.

A Sunrise period will run until June 15. TM must be an exact match. Any nationally registered trademark. Registration must have been already issued by the claiming date.

There will be a list of blocked names (names which have been applied for, according to the pre-registration procedures.) Whois info regarding these names will be posted.

No clearance as to trademark rights of domain name applicant; the registrar will only check that the applicant is duly licensed to practice in her jurisdiction.

.pro will go live in July (definitive registrations). In the beginning, it will be focused on the US.

WHOIS info: Only typical info will be posted. (owner, contacts, etc.) For sunrise registrations the TM details will be listed.

(Regarding other information, Michael Palage mentioned that .kids.us is currently running a sunrise period, which will run from June 17- Aug 26^th)

2:30 Briefing from Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh on work of United Nations Information and Communications Technologies Task Force 

Dr. Abu-Ghazalleh made a brief presentation on the background of this Task Force, where he serves in his capacity of Vice Chairman, and emphasized the fact that said entity was created by a resolution of the UN on the world Summit that it hosted in the year 2000.

The UN has drafted a list of Millennium Development Goals, which must be met by the year 2015. One of such goals is to bridge the digital divide. This is the main purpose of the Task Force.

Its members are 18 governments, 8 private-sector organizations, 6 IGOs and 4 NGOs. All of them are equal partners, with equal voting power.

Dr. Abu-Ghazalleh mentioned that the then ICANN President has attended one of their meetings and stressed the need for cooperation between the two organisms.

In his opinion, it would not prove useful for his organization to join the GAC. He would rather suggest that the Task Force cooperate with the GAC and ICANN as a whole.

Dr. Abu-Ghazalleh concluded that the IP community has had a disappointing performance with regard to the Internet. He argued that the only protection currently afforded to IP rights on the net is the UDRP, which in fact grants protection to domain name holders.

He invites the IP community to join forces and become more forceful, more vocal in trying to protect IP rights on the Internet.

Laurence made a question regarding the relationship of this Task Force and the UN World Information Society Summit to be held in Geneva in December and Tunisia, 2 years after that. Dr. Abu-Ghazalleh informed our Constituency that the Forum will focus on global strategies for the digitalization of society, as well as issues such as e-learning, e-government, e-business, etc.

2:40. WHOIS - update re implementation committee work and data protection and update re bulk whois issues

Laurence informed us that the WHOIS Task Force has been working for more than a year now, and that it has analyzed the results of a survey conducted within ICANN.

Laurence also commented upon a series of recommendations issued during the Rio meeting:

2 recommendations on Data accuracy

2 recommendations re Bulk access

Highlights:

• Data Accuracy. This issue was raised during a recent GNSO meeting. The European Commission will address the matter. The GAC has created a WG on WHOIS access.
• Article 29 Working Party- Working Document. National Data Protection Authorities (from Europe) will look into access to WHOIS data.
• IPC is working to enhance understanding re how WHOIS works in practice, in order to explain to national authorities that WHOIS is not just about SPAM, but that it has important IP protection uses.
• A European Data Protection Specialist, Chris Kuhner, has been retained as advisor to the IPC. He has sufficient contacts with Data Protection Agencies.

Mike Heltzer mentioned that Bulk access is currently being stopped. Registrar Constituency voted to eliminate bulk access. A resolution has been adopted to carve out an exception for legitimate interests, which should include IP owners. We will have to go to the GNSO and raise this issue. Companies are including in their contracts a 1 million dollar per breach clause.

Other issues raised by our Constituency:

• IPC put together a group of experts to address this issue.
• Response from MELBOURNE IT: Contracts are to be enforced. Agrees with IPC on that. Bulk Whois makes Registrars sell their customer lists. And is an opportunity for SPAM. The issue is resolving between competing interests. IP owners have legitimate rights to use the data.
• Bulk access defined: Registrars have to provide the whole of their data.

Attendees commented that ICANN must rigorously enforce its contracts. Not doing so is irresponsible. It was suggested that this issue be raised with US Congress and with the US Department of Commerce as an issue in the next renewal of the MoU with ICANN.

3:05 New gTLDs update.

Jane: The Board in Rio approved a limited number of sponsored gTLDs. IPC agreed, insofar as they are sponsored gTLDs. Mike Heltzer is chairing an IPC taskforce to analyze the new gTLD applications.

3:10 IDN Briefing.

Jane has set up a WG to look into the matter.

Charles Shaban is the chair of this group.

Purpose of the IDN WG:

• Creating an outline of what IDNs are, and how they will affect the DNS.
• What the position of the IPC is.
• Analyzing standardization issues.. WG Will report back to the IPC on this matter
• Studying whether the UDRP as currently formatted can properly handle IDN cases. .

3:30 WIPO II  - the issues before ICANN.

Jane briefed us on the Gurry Letter. As a result of the WIPO 2 process, WIPO was asked to require ICANN to provide protection to IGOs and country names.

Issues so far identified by IPC members:

1. UDRP is effective system for protection of TM rights. Any amendments should be carefully analyzed.

2. Panelists would be unfamiliar with rights involved.

3. Country names don’t have any international protection.

4. IGOs do have protection under article 6ter of the Paris Convention

5. Because IGOs often enjoy immunity, they would be reluctant to end up in a national court in an appeal. Country names would probably go the same way.

6. This could be a good opportunity to test an appeals system in a small, controlled environment

7. No retroactivity

Jane: The GAC has endorsed the Gurry letter.

Other Business

Due to lack of time the treasurer's report and membership report was skipped. Jane reported that we had some money but encouraged members who hadn't yet responded to the IPC invoices to do so.

4:00 adjournment.