Comments from the European Patent Organisation (EPO)

[Marcello Accinni <maccinni@xxxxxxx>]

The European Patent Organisation (EPO) fully supports the comments made by the 
United Nations and other IGOs, that the recent IGO-INGO Identifier Protection 
recommendations adopted by the GNSO Council are inadequate to protect the names 
and acronyms of intergovernmental organisations.

Other than on the basis of flawed commercial concerns, there is no possible 
reason for making a distinction between full names and acronyms. In fact, it is 
well known that a vast majority of IGOs are far better known by their acronyms 
than their full names (the same applies to “ICANN”). Experience bears this out, 
as IGO acronyms have often fallen victim to cybersquatting and other forms of 
abuse in the DNS. Limiting protection for the acronyms would bring costs to the 
detriment of essential public missions, especially when essential public 
services and information are provided online via the Internet.

The EPO plays a fundamental role in patent granting and patent information 
activities. These services are heavily relying on the Internet. The EPO is 
frequently informed by patent applicants and the public that they became 
targets or even victims of fraudulent activities from entities falsely 
representing themselves as acting as official registries. This causes 
considerable damage (up to € 2.000,- / $ 2,750.- per every single case, 
hundreds of cases per year). The number of cases would rise if no special 
preventative protection for the acronyms of the EPO on 1st and 2nd level will 
be provided.

IGOs have indicated on many occasions that their intention is not to prevent in 
absolute terms good faith use of their acronyms in the DNS by third parties. 
Rather, IGOs are looking for solutions to pre-empt third-party abuse of their 
acronyms to prevent user confusion and the resulting loss of confidence in both 
IGOs and the DNS.

The GAC repeatedly advised that IGOs, as entities created by governments under 
public international law, are in an objectively different category to other 
rights holders and that there is a prevailing global public interest to provide 
special preventative protection for IGO names and acronyms at both the top and 
second levels.

The EPO therefore urges ICANN to adopt a policy that will protect IGOs in the 
same manner afforded to the RCRC and the IOC; namely, the placement of their 
names and acronyms in the Applicant Guidebook section 2.2.1.2.3, Strings; 
Ineligible for Delegation; for both top level and second level domain names.

Marcello Accinni
Head of Department General Law and Contract Law | Dir. 5.3.1.2
European Patent Office
Bob-van-Benthem-Platz 1 | 80469 Munich | Germany
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