Comments on behaf of the Governments of Chile and Argentina

[Olga Cavalli <olgacavalli@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,

These comments are sent on behaf of the Governments of Chile and Argentina.

Please confirm the reception.

Best regards.


Olga Cavalli, PhD Eng

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Argentina

+54 11 4819 7979



Argentina and Chile want to thank ICANN for having the possibility of
submitting comments to the proposal requested by the Brand Registry Group
to incorporate a new Specification 13 for the gTLD Registry Agreement,
which would be available to a Registry Operator that operates a TLD that
ICANN determines qualifies as a “.Brand TLD”.

In this sense Argentina and Chile want to make the following comments:

·                       whether it is appropriate to classify certain TLDs
as “.Brand TLDs”

·                       whether the definition of “.Brand TLD” is
sufficiently narrow to capture only what is commonly recognized as a
corporate brand



*Trademarks are not gTLDs*

Trademark rights have no similarity to the rights conferred on using
ICANN's new top level domain names. Trademark rights are conferred by
States to individuals for the sole purpose of protecting the bona fide use
of a mark in a specific category of products or services. There is no
system of brands in the world to grant general rights on the use of a sign
or name. The applicant of a trademark registrant shall inform the agency of
each country which is the current use that does or intends to do with that
mark, ie. to designate specific product or service under that mark and an
specific category. *The State grants the exclusive right to such use and no
more than that.*

Requested trademark applications have been ordered for specific products
and services which demonstrates its own recognition of the limitation of
the company’s rights. In the national nomenclature of goods and services
(in accordance with the Treaty of Nice), there are 45 classes of goods and
services.

*General comments about registration of domain names at the second level:*

Registry agreements and rules for Registry Operators should fully respect
what is established by the “GAC Principles regarding new gTLDs” document:



Applicant registries of new gTLDs should pledge to:



•          Adopt procedures for blocking, at no cost and on demand of
governments, public authorities or IGOs, names with national or geographic
significance.

•          Ensure procedures to allow governments, public authorities and
IGOs to challenge abuses of names with national or geogaphic significance
at the second level of a new gTLD.



Full text of the GAC principles regarding new gTLDs can be found in this
link:



https://gacweb.icann.org/download/attachments/28278837/gTLD_principles_0.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1312358178000&api=v2





Also the ICANN Board – GAC Consultations about Geographic Names that took
place in 2011 addressed this issue when established that:



All applicants are required to describe in the application their proposed
measures for ensuring the protection of geographic names at the second and
other levels in their TLD.



Full text of the ICANN Board – GAC Consultations can be found



http://archive.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/gac-board-geographic-names-21feb11-en.pdf