Comments on the IRT Draft Report

["Katrin Ohlmer" <katrin@xxxxxxxxxx>]

DOTZON GmbH consults companies and organizations how to apply for their own
top-level domains (TLDs) like .brand or .company. We have clients including
German industry leaders (DAX 30 stock market index) and Internet companies.
In this capacity we would like to make comments to the IRT Draft Report:

We would like to express our appreciation over the quick results made by the
Implementation Recommendation Team (IRT), even though they are preliminary.
The proposals made in the report take into account the necessary mechanisms
to protect rights holders with domain name abuse. We fully support efforts
to minimize this abuse.


1) Globally Protected Marks List - GPML

The requirement of 200 trademark registrations of national effect for a GPM
that have issued in 90 countries across all 5 ICANN Regions can not be met
since there are less that 200 trademark offices. As well the requirement of
200 trademark registrations in 90 countries will be only met by a dozen
trademarks globally. Therefore we recommend to lower these criteria to an
adequate level.

We also recommend to limit the eligible trademark registrations to wordmarks
only.

As of now the planned GPM list includes only trademarks who are globally
protected and well-known. We think this is not feasible and smaller marks
which do not meet the criteria of being both globally protected and
well-known are not represented. Smaller or national brands should be able to
protect their rights in a comparable manner. We therefore recommend to
handle applications for smaller or not so well-known trademarks similar to
the applications filed by marks from the GPML if their application is done
with ?good faith?. This mechanism could include the legal evidence of being
a well-known trademark at least in one country.


2) Thick Whois

We fully support the Thick-Whois approach.


Katrin Ohlmer, CEO, DOTZON GmbH, Berlin, Germany
6th May 2009


DOTZON GmbH - incubating name spaces
Akazienstrasse 2
10823 Berlin
Deutschland - Germany
Tel: +49 30 49802722
Fax: +49 30 49802727
Mobile: +49 173 2019240
katrin@xxxxxxxxxx
www.dotzon.com

DOTZON GmbH
Registergericht: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 118598B
Geschäftsführer: Katrin Ohlmer
Sitz der Gesellschaft: Akazienstraße 2, 10823 Berlin