[gnso-sti] Bearing the cost of the Clearinghouse

[Alan Greenberg <alan.greenberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

For pre-launch sunrise process, the only real source of money is the 
TM holder, either at the time that a TM is registered with the 
Clearinghouse (CH), or when a sunrise domain name is granted.
For a pre-launch IP Claims process, it is not likely that the 
potential registrant will be billed by the CH for receiving a claims 
notice, so the only source of funds is the TM holder (at CH 
registration time or when a notice is sent out on their behalf) or 
the registry (which will in turn bill it to someone).
It is important that we either describe or at least not forbid a 
model that will allow the CH to cover its costs in both the case of 
very few new gTLD launches and in the case of many new gTLD launches.
Presumably the CH will charge the TM holder at registration time for 
being in the CH.
My question is how does the CH get additional funds based on the 
actual gTLD launch volume of work.
For sunrise:
a) it bills the TM holder again every time they are included in a sunrise
b) it bills the registry, and the registry includes it in the sunrise 
registration cost.
I suggest that b) is a far more scalable and efficient model.

For an IP Claims process, I have no idea how the CH charges to ensure 
that it gets revenue commensurate with work performed.
With regards to Jeff's note, the IRT (if I remember correctly) did 
specify that registries should not be charged for specific CH 
services. It did not specify who SHOULD be charged, and I think that 
this was at least part of the thrust of the Board question on that 
matter. Associated with this is the question about whether ICANN 
should explicitly fund any part of the CH, which I suspect we will 
all answer NO to.
Alan