Federdoc's reaction to the GAC's communiqué on 11 April 2013 in Beijing

["Debora Santoro - Federdoc" <deborasantoro@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To the courteous attention of Dr Steve Crocker, Chair of the ICANN Board

Mr Cherine Chalaby, Chair of the new gTLD Program Committee Board

Mr Fadi Chehadé, CEO of ICANN

Mr Akram Atallah, COO of ICANN

 

In copy: Ms Heather Dryden, Chair of the Governmental Advisory Committee

Object: Reaction to the GAC’s communiqué on 11 April 2013 in Beijing

 

Dear Madam, dear Sirs,

Federdoc , the Italian Federation of Origin Wines, a Rome based organisation
representing

PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and PGI (Protected Geographical
Indication) wines

towards Italian, European and international institutions, would like to
contribute to the open

debate launched by the ICANN Board regarding the Governmental Advisory

Committee’s (GAC) Communiqué of 11 April1.

 

In light of our serious concerns regarding the protection of wines with a
Geographical Indication (GI),

Federdoc would like to bring its support to the position expressed by the
GAC’s Communiqué

in Beijing concerning the strings “.wine”and “.vin”.

 

Federdoc believes that the management of the possible new Internet domains
“.wine” and “.vin”

is a very sensible issue which must be further examined by the GAC in Durban
in July.

We would like to underline that Federdoc is not opposed to the attribution
of new gTLDs.

Nevertheless, given the prejudice that these two strings may cause to the
Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs)

of GI wines, the ICANN Board must take into consideration the request of the
GAC and must not

proceed beyond Initial Evaluation with the examination of the 4 applications
it has received.

 

Moreover, Federdoc calls for the strings “.wine” and “.vin” to be included
in Annex I “Safeguards on New gTLDs”.

In fact, only their inclusion in that chapter will allow for an adequate
respect of GI wines IPRs - as established by article 23

of the WTO TRIPs Agreement on trade-related aspects of IPRs - and to
guarantee consumer protection.

More specifically, ICANN should develop a procedure that ensures that GI
names cannot be reserved

by third parties and enables organisations responsible for the protection of
GIs to oppose the reservation

of a domain name that consists of or contains the name of a GI through a
procedure, e.g. an alternative dispute resolution (ADR).

 

We believe it to be necessary for ICANN to take into account the opinions of
professional

organisations and governments. On the contrary it would risk discrediting
this major change

in the development of the Internet.

 

We thank you in advance for taking into consideration our

observations and would welcome an open discussion on this specific issue.

 

Yours faithfully,

Riccardo Ricci Curbastro

President of Federdoc

 

 

Via Piave, 24 - 00187 Roma

Tel  +39- 06 44250589 Fax  +39- 06 44249965

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