[bc-gnso] RE: Contention sets for new gTLDs

[Phil Corwin <psc@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Unbelievably, they did not consider the singular and plural versions of key 
words to be confusingly similar."

Unbelievable indeed.  How about .dumb and .dumber?

Meanwhile the leading trademark authority in the United States, Professor 
Thomas McCarthy,  has just filed a statement opposing closed generic gTLDs as 
being inconsistent with trademark law and its goals -- 
http://forum.icann.org/lists/comments-closed-generic-05feb13/msg00034.html --

"Trademark law in every country in the world forbids individuals to gain 
exclusive
property rights in generic names of products. One of the primary rationales for 
this rule is to
prevent a single person or company from gaining an unfair competitive advantage 
in the
marketplace. Private ownership of generic language is not consistent with free 
enterprise and
fair competition in an open economy. If ICANN were to approve closed, generic 
gTLDs, these
important goals would be undermined...

Transparency and consumer choice are goals of the trademark system of every 
country in
the world. In our view, these values are threatened by closed, generic gTLDs. 
Indeed, should
these types of new gTLDs be approved, consumers may mistakenly believe they are 
using a
gTLD that allows for competition, when in reality the gTLD is closed and the 
apparently
competitive products are being offered by a single entity. This would allow the 
owner of the
generic gTLD to gain exclusive recognition as the provider of a generic 
service, something that
is prohibited by Trademark law."

How will that reflect on ICANN and the new gTLD program?

Philip S. Corwin, Founding Principal
Virtualaw LLC
1155 F Street, NW
Suite 1050
Washington, DC 20004
202-559-8597/Direct
202-559-8750/Fax
202-255-6172/cell

Twitter: @VlawDC

"Luck is the residue of design" -- Branch Rickey

From: owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx [mailto:owner-bc-gnso@xxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of 
Steve DelBianco
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 6:50 PM
To: bc - GNSO list
Subject: [bc-gnso] Update: Contention sets for new gTLDs

Wanted you all to see this.   I think it will reflect poorly on ICANN's 
expansion of TLDs.

ICANN hired an international expert panel to scour 1900 new TLD strings and 
determine which were confusingly similar, so they could be combines in the same 
contention set.

This is to ensure we don't delegate 2 TLD strings that would confuse Internet 
users because they are too similar.  I expected, for example, that the 
applications received for .hotel and .hotels would be in the same contention 
set, since it would be confusing for users to have both TLDs out there.  (It 
would increase the cost of defensive registrations, too, since hotels would 
have to buy domains in both TLDs.  )

After several months of careful study, ICANN's experts published their 
contention sets yesterday. 
(link<http://www.icann.org/en/news/announcements/announcement-26feb13-en.htm>)

They "identified" 230 "exact match contention sets" where multiple applicants 
sought the exact same string.

And they found just 2 "non-exact match contention sets"  (unicom and unicorm; 
hoteis and hotels )

Unbelievably, they did not consider the singular and plural versions of key 
words to be confusingly similar.

This means we will get new TLDs for both the singular and plural versions of 
keywords such as:

ACCOUNTANT ACCOUNTANTS
AUTO  AUTOS
CAR CARS
CAREER CAREERS
COUPON COUPONS
CRUISE CRUISES
DEAL DEALS
FAN FANS
GAME GAMES
GIFT GIFTS
HOME HOMES
HOTEL HOTELS
HOTEL HOTELES
KID KIDS
LOAN LOANS
MARKET MARKETS
NEW NEWS
PET PETS
PHOTO PHOTOS
REVIEW REVIEWS
SPORT SPORTS
TOUR TOURS
WEB WEBS
WORK WORKS

What are the implications for applicants?   Well, let's take an example.  The 2 
Applicants for .GIFT just got a huge gift from ICANN when they were not placed 
in the same contention set as the 2 applicants for .GIFTS

One of the 2 .GIFT guys must prevail in their "singular" contention set.   They 
can then proceed to delegation, as they planned.  Or they can negotiate to be 
bought-out by the winning applicant from the plural contention set ( .GIFTS ).

In other words, many applicants dodged a bullet by escaping from contention 
with their singular/plural form competitors.   My guess is they want to explore 
ways to monetize their good fortune.

 --
Steve DelBianco
Executive Director
NetChoice
http://www.NetChoice.org and http://blog.netchoice.org
+1.202.420.7482




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