[gnso-sti] Questions regarding the Board letter

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

On reviewing the list of Clearinghouse questions in the Board letter, 
I have a few questions of my own. Perhaps my lack of training or 
experience with domain IP issues is showing, and if so, I humbly apologize.

Q.1 Impact of a clearinghouse notice on a registrant: is there a 
potential chilling effect on registrations if a Trademark holder 
contacts a registrant before the registration is made?
I understand the concept of potential chilling effect of receiving 
the IP Claims notices when trying to register a domain. But under the 
staff proposals (without the GMPL), I was not aware of any notice to 
trade-mark holders PRIOR to registration. The staff proposal 
explicitly says that such notice must not go out before the 
registration is effective so that it does not give the TM owner the 
ability to preemptively register or otherwise block an otherwise 
legitimate domain name. What am I missing?

Q.4 Should the Clearinghouse requirements (including the choice of IP 
Claims or Sunrise processes) be applied to existing registries?
In the staff proposals, the IP Clearing house is only for use 
pre-launch, and Sunrise processes are associated with new domains. So 
how could either be applicable to the existing registries?

Alan