[gnso-igo-ingo] RE: Objective Criteria Shortlist

[Kiran Malancharuvil <kmalancharuvil@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Claudia and All:

While we agree with many of your points, that organizations should be 
international, non-profit organizations that serve the public good, our goal, 
as Thomas has reminded us, is to develop a prioritized short list of criteria 
that are objective, easily verified, and justified.

While the points you raise (including membership composition, organizational 
mandate to serve the public good, and the remaining items 3-7) are good 
justifications for protection, they do not represent appropriate criteria for 
special protection, as they would be difficult to implement and over-inclusive.

This group must focus on this distinction when developing qualification 
criteria.  Criteria must be objective, easily verified, and not overly 
inclusive.  Questions such as X-number of domain names and what constitutes a 
"public good" run a high risk of being arbitrary and subjective.

In addition,  we very much agree with you that any treaty and/or national law 
should be relevant to the string protected.  For example, the national laws 
cited by the IOC protect against the unauthorized use of at least the words 
Olympic and Olympiad, as we stated  in last week's call.     This can be easily 
verified.

We look forward to discussing this more on today's call.

Best regards,

Jim Bikoff, David Heasley and Kiran Malancharuvil

Kiran J. Malancharuvil
Silverberg, Goldman & Bikoff, L.L.P.
Georgetown Place
1101 30th Street NW, Suite 120
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 944-3307 - office
(619) 972-7810 - mobile
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From: Claudia MACMASTER TAMARIT [mailto:MACMASTER@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 6:08 AM
To: gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx<mailto:gnso-igo-ingo@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Thomas Rickert (rickert@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:rickert@xxxxxxxxxxx>); Berry 
Cobb (mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>); Jim Bikoff; David 
Heasley; Kiran Malancharuvil
Subject: Objective Criteria Shortlist


Hi all,



We strongly support the effort to work efficiently and steadily towards an 
objective and non-discriminatory Recommendation regarding special protections 
for IGO-INGO names.  In this light, we suggest the following prioritized list 
of criteria:



1)      Membership (e.g., 1+ country represented)

2)      Organizational mandate to serve the international public good (e.g., 
Statutes, Bylaws, Treaty, etc.)

3)      Character string to be protected is already protected in law (e.g., 
trademark law, Article 6ter)

4)      Non-profit status

5)      Work/serve on international level (e.g., 1+ countries or 1+ 
international organization)

6)      Engage individuals globally (e.g., involving persons from 1+ country)

7)      Internet presence (e.g.,  at least 1 domain name)



Please note the last criteria is suggested in light of our recent conversations 
(and could be expanded to include evidence of defending that presence, if 
appropriate.)  Of course any discussion of an organization's efforts to defend 
against domain name abuse must be contextualized.



There is a deep irony in requiring "vulnerable" organizations to show that they 
have and can shell out thousands and thousands on a yearly basis for domain 
name abuse.  Such an exercise needs to be contextualized with reference to the 
organization's mandate and operational realities.



In regards to the attached, we disagree that "The most objective, and useful 
criterion to the inquiry is the existence of national laws or treaties that 
prohibit the unauthorized use of the words/designations in question" for the 
following reasons;



a.       The relationship between the aspect protected by treaty and the 
alphanumeric string to be protected may be far from direct or objectively 
assessed (unless, e.g., it is the Paris Convention, TRIPs, etc. where TM = name 
or 6ter protection = name).



b.      Relatedly, the relevance a treaty may have in regards to the protection 
of a name in a domain name may not be readily evident (unless, e.g., again, the 
name is directly protected).



c.       Reference to a treaty may exclude many organizations (for example, 
organizations without trademark protection for their names across multiple 
jurisdictions) without any legitimate justification.



d.      We should remember there is nothing in the language of the charter that 
limits us when discussing the relevance of treaty protections.  The cases for 
INGOs, IGOs and the IOC and the Red Cross may be vastly different and merit 
individual analysis.



As a final note, we suggest the top two (2) criteria are of priority.



Both (1) membership composition and (2) possessing an organizational mandate to 
serve the international public good are criteria directed to including only 
organizations with a truly global reach and which serve the public good.



Sincerely,

Claudia

Claudia MacMaster Tamarit, Esq.
Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Manager

International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
ISO Central Secretariat
T:  + 41 22 749 0441
F:  + 41 22 733 3430
E:  macmaster@xxxxxxx<mailto:macmaster@xxxxxxx>
www.iso.org<http://www.iso.org/>