Comments on "A Plan for Action Regarding New gTLDs"

["John Mueller" <John.Mueller@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sir,

As the head of the Domain Name Policy Subcommittee of the ABA Intellectual 
Property Law Section 601, I just wanted to provide some brief comments 
regarding your Action Plan.

In particular, to the extent that your action plan calls for new gTLDs, 
particularly un-sponsored gTLDs, we do not believe that your plan 
adequately addresses the market need for proceeding with such new gTLDs in 
the face of the underwhelming support (and overwhelming problems) 
connected with the .biz and .info roll-outs.

While it is agreed that a taxonomy should be implemented for the governance 
of future roll-outs, it is our opinion that inmaking the final determination 
as to whether or not a new gTLD should be rolled out at all, the most 
weight should be given to whether there is a market demand for the new 
gTLDs.  In this regard, it is our opinion that this demand has not been 
shown with respect to the .biz and .info domain names that were rolled out 
in the past 2 years and that there is little or no demand for the addition 
of new unsponsored gTLDs now or in the near future.

Indeed, it would seem that such concerns were not significantly considered 
when the .biz, .info and the other new gTLDs were rolled out in the first 
place.  As a result, the larger American trademark holders and businesses 
whom our ABA Section members tend to represent have been forced into 
spending significant sums of money in the registration and policing of 
these new gTLD spaces with little to no material benefit to doing so. 

It is our hope that this significant and needless waste of our client's 
material resources could be avoided in the future by ICANN's considering 
the factors noted above prior to making any further decisions to add any 
new gTLD's, and particularly, any new, unsponsored, gTLD's.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

John M. Mueller
Chair, Domain Name Policy Subcommittee of ABA Committee 601 

John M. Mueller
Thompson Hine LLP
2000 Courthouse Plaza, NE
10 West Second Street
Dayton, Ohio 45402-1758
  937-443-6832 (voice)
  937-443-6635 (fax)
john.mueller@ThompsonHine.com