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NCUC Comments on Uniform Rapid Suspension System & Trademark Clearinghouse Proposals

  • To: tm-clear-15feb10@xxxxxxxxx, urs-15feb10@xxxxxxxxx
  • Subject: NCUC Comments on Uniform Rapid Suspension System & Trademark Clearinghouse Proposals
  • From: Robin Gross <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 17:59:31 -0700

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Attachment: NCUC-STI_Comments_TMC_URS_04012010.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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"><div><span></span></div><div><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; 
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style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 
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"><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; 
margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Helvetica" size="5" 
style="font: 18.0px Helvetica"><b>NCUC Comments</b></font></div><div 
style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 
0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px 
Helvetica"><b>on the</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 
0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font 
face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Helvetica"><b>Uniform Rapid 
Suspension System</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 
0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px 
Helvetica"><b>and</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 
0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; "><font 
face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 15.0px Helvetica"><b>Trademark 
Clearinghouse Proposals</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; 
margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; 
"><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><b>as revised 
by ICANN Staff</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; 
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: center; font: normal normal 
normal 9px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 11px; "><br></div><div 
style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 
0px; text-align: center; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica"><b>1 April 2010</b></font></div><p align="justify" style="margin: 
0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; font: 9.0px Helvetica; 
min-height: 11.0px"><br></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 
10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 
11.0px Helvetica">The Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) welcomes the 
opportunity to submit our comments to the revised documents, produced by the 
ICANN Staff, relating to the creation of a Trademark Clearinghouse and a 
Uniform Rapid Suspension System, which will be included in version 4 of the 
Draft Applicant Guidebook. We also welcome the 12 March 2010 ICANN Board 
Resolutions supporting the substantive content of the Clearinghouse and of the 
Uniform Rapid Suspension System.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 
0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" 
style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">Generally speaking, both staff-prepared 
documents reflect the main deliberations and conclusions of the GNSO’s Special 
Trademark Issues Team (STI). At the same time, however, there are specific 
issues in which the staff-revised proposals depart substantially from the 
GNSO-STI’s recommendations and some mistakes appear to be simple typographical 
errors. Although we appreciate that some of these comments attempt to 
consolidate the various opinions of the community during the public comment 
period, some of these comments reflect staff additions to the policy that NCUC 
believes are arbitrary, unjustified and – in some cases – 
illegitimate.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 
0.0px; text-align: justify; font: 11.0px Helvetica; min-height: 
13.0px"><br></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; 
text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px 
Helvetica"><b>The Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS)</b></font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">The 
original scope of the URS, reflected both in the Implementation Recommendation 
Team (IRT) report as well as in the recommendations produced by the GNSO 
Special Trademark Issues (STI) group, was to deal with the ’clear-cut’ and 
undisputable cases of cybersquatting. It was also designed with the idea that 
URS Examiners would proceed to a substantive review of any case before making 
their determinations. At no point, was it considered that a domain name dispute 
that reached the URS level would automatically indicate cybersquatting. The 
revised Staff report, however, seems to suggest exactly this. In particular, 
section 2 of the URS document states: “<b>Given the nature of expected disputes 
in this venue, it is thought, more often than not, that no response to 
complaints will be submitted…</b>”. We strongly urge the ICANN Staff to 
<b>remove</b> this sentence as it operates under a presumption of guilt on 
behalf of the Respondent. This was not part of the GNSO-STI recommendation, 
which was adamant about the Examiner conducting a substantive review of the 
dispute, even if the domain name holder failed to respond. We believe that it 
is unfair and against the principles of due process as it is patently 
prejudiced in favor of trademark complainants. A fair and neutral URS procedure 
should not operate under the presumption that ‘more often than not’ there will 
be no response to the complaint.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 
0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" 
style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">Moreover, section 4.3 of the revised Staff 
report states: “… as well as the effects if the registrant fails to respond and 
defend <b>again</b> the Complaint”. This is a mistake – it should instead read: 
“… as well as the effects if the registrant fails to respond and defend 
<b>against</b> the Complainant”.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 
0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" 
style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">Furthermore and while we welcome the 
affordability of the URS to provide, upon request, some extra time to the 
Registrant if there is good faith for doing so, we do not accept that this time 
should be contingent on the fact that it “<b>does not harm the 
Complainant</b>”. This addition indirectly negates the affordability of 
‘buying’ some extra time on the mere assertion of perceived harm of the 
complainant. From the perspective of trademark owners and considering that they 
are the ones to initiate the dispute, any extra time will harm them and they 
will always claim “harm” when more time is needed. Therefore, making the 
allowance of this extra time dependant on whether this causes harm to the 
Complainant, makes this provision redundant. At the same time, trademark owners 
can allege harm without submitting any proof or evidence for this harm and 
therefore disallow Registrants of the opportunity for additional time. <b>The 
very fact that the registrant has responded demonstrates good faith</b>. We 
strongly urge the ICANN staff to <b>remove</b> this added provision and we 
believe that the limitation of allowing this extra time based on good faith is 
sufficient and in line with the consensus of the GNSO.</font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">More 
importantly, we would also like to draw attention to paragraph 6 “Default” of 
the new staff proposals. Section 6.1 states: “If at the expiration of the 
20-day answer period (or extension period of granted), the Registrant does not 
submit an answer, the Complaint proceeds to default. <b>If the answer is 
determined not to be in compliance with the filing requirements, Default is 
also appropriate</b>”. It is the second sentence of this section that is highly 
problematic and illegitimate by expanding the meaning of the term “default” to 
include minor filing mistakes. Exactly the same view was reflected by the ICANN 
Staff in its report, following the IRT’s recommendation (<a 
href="x-msg://331/%22"><font color="#0032e6" style="color: 
#0032e6"><u>http://www.icann.org/en/topics/new-gtlds/draft-proposed-procedure-urs-04oct09-en.pdf</u></font></a>)
 and it was an interpretation the GNSO-STI consciously rejected. Under legal 
theory and practice default means one thing and one thing only: <b>failure to 
respond in a timely manner</b>. It does not extend to filling mistakes, which 
are bound to occur in many innocent instances.&nbsp; It is simply unfair to 
bump the dispute to default status simply for filing errors and 
omissions.&nbsp;</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 
0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">There are many reasons why this provision is illegitimate and should 
be removed from what will eventually be part of version 4 of the Applicants’ 
Guidebook. First of all, it only applies to the Registrant/domain name holder. 
This is unfair – both procedurally and substantively – as it does not provide 
room for human error. Secondly, if this document is supposed to reflect the 
recommendations made by the GNSO-STI as well as the comments of the public 
comment period, then this provision has been arbitrarily added by the ICANN 
staff. As said before, the GNSO-STI wilfully dismissed this expansive 
interpretation of default, whilst there is not one single comment made during 
the public comment period, which suggested that default should also be 
interpreted in such a broad manner. Moreover, by interpreting default so 
expansively, it is to be anticipated that many registrants will be placed in a 
disadvantageous position, since, in many cases, Registrants do not have at 
their disposal legal teams and represent themselves. Registrants are fighting 
against a ‘ticking clock’ with short deadlines and in many cases English is not 
their first language – therefore, mistakes are and will be inevitable. We 
strongly urge the <b>removal of</b> the second sentence of section 6.1 – namely 
<u>“If the answer is determined not to be in compliance with the filing 
requirements, Default is also appropriate</u>”.</font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">NCUC also believes 
that the opening sentence of section 5.6 is too passive and suggests that the 
sentence “Such claims, if found by the Examiner to be proved based on its 
evaluation of all evidence, shall result in a finding in favor of the 
Registrant” that sits at the end of section 5.6 should be placed in the 
beginning and follow the opening sentence. The new, amended version should 
read: “<b>The Response can contain any facts refuting the claim of bad faith 
registration by setting out any of the following circumstances, which, if found 
by the Examiner to be proved based on its evaluation of all evidence, shall 
result in a finding in favor of the Registrant:</b>”</font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">Furthermore, NCUC <u>strongly</u> disagrees with the staff’s 
replacement of the GNSO’s negotiated language of “Safe Harbor” provisions with 
the word ‘Defenses’ and is not convinced that this is a product of “further 
independent legal analysis”. The GNSO-STI was comprised – amongst others – by 
legal experts in the area of trademarks and domain names and the GNSO-STI’s use 
of the “Safe Harbor” language was a product of extensive legal consideration 
and negotiation; this language also received GNSO-STI’s unanimous consensus. 
The word “Defenses” – is much weaker and especially in the context that it is 
used – does not create a binding legal obligation for the URS Examiner to 
accept that the Respondent has the right to demonstrate that the domain name 
registration is legitimate and in good faith. The GNSO-STI made use of the 
Nominet language in purpose and with the aim to identify the circumstances 
where the domain name holder is the <i>de jure </i>owner of the domain name. 
We, therefore, recommend that these staff-revised proposals <b>should either go 
back to the use of the phrase “Safe Harbor” or, alternatively, should use the 
Nominet language:</b> “<b>How a Respondent may demonstrate in its response that 
the Domain Name is not an Abusive Registration and is making a legitimate use 
of the domain name</b>”.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 
0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" 
style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">It is also necessary to clarify in the next DAG 
that the scope of the URS Safe Harbors that operate in tribute to or in 
criticism of a person or a business will not be limited to only those 
situations where there has been a previous legal determination of fair use 
before the criticism may be allowed.&nbsp; Therefore, we recommend a slight 
amendment to clarify the AGB model <b>“(d)omain Name sites operated solely in 
tribute to or in criticism of a person or business that is found by the panel 
or other adjudicator to be fair use</b>.”</font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">There is also a 
mistake in the wording of section 5.8 – “other considerations of bad faith for 
the Examiner”. This should read “Other consideration of good faith for the 
Examiner” as it constitutes a continuation of section 5.7. Actually, there is 
no reason for the separation of the “Safe Harbor” provisions in two sections. 
We, therefore, suggest that 5.8 (a) and (b) be replaced by 5.7 (e) and 
(f).</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; 
text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">In the context of “Abusive Complaints”, the revised ICANN staff 
report, in section 11, fails to distinguish between abuses on behalf of 
trademark owners and on behalf of URS examiners. At the same time, sections 
11.1 and 11.2 should be merged into one section as they deal with the same 
subject matter. In particular, section 11.2 contains a lot of language mistakes 
and fails to make sense. The GNSO-STI’s section 9 entitled “Abuse of Process” 
was very clear in the distinction between the types of abuses and received 
unanimous consensus by the GNSO. In particular it stated:</font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica"><u>9. 
Abuse of Process</u></font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 
10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 
11.0px Helvetica">9.1 “Abuse by trademark holders: The URS shall incorporate 
penalties for abuse of the process by trademark holders. In the event of two 
(2) abusive complaints, or one (1) finding of a “deliberate material 
falsehood,” the party should be barred for one (1) years from the URS. Two (2) 
finding of “deliberate material falsehood” should permanently bar the party 
from the URS. Multiple complaints must be against the same entity and should 
not include affiliates. Staff shall implement guidelines for what constitutes 
abuse, consistent with previous cases of reverse domain name hijacking, TM 
abuse and general principles of fairness. The examiner of the URS case should 
indicate in the decision whether an abusive complaint or a deliberate material 
falsehood has occurred, and the Service Providers should report any of such 
findings to ICANN”.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 
10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 
11.0px Helvetica">9.2 “Abuse by Examiners: The URS shall incorporate penalties 
for abuse of the process by examiners. Three (3) or more findings of abuse of 
process or discretion against an examiner shall cause the examiner to lose its 
certification to serve as a panellist. Staff to implement guidelines for what 
constitutes abuse and who makes the decision. ICANN to collect data related to 
such findings of abuse by examiners.”</font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica"><b><i>NCUC urges ICANN 
to go back to the original GNSO-STI recommendation on “Abuse of Process” and 
use its negotiated and clear language. </i></b>We also<b><i> </i></b>urge the 
staff to develop, in consultation with the community, clearer guidelines as to 
what is meant by "deliberate material falsehood" in this context.</font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">Furthermore, it appears that the evaluation of appeal instructions 
as set by the GNSO-STI team is missing from the staff-revised texts. <b><i>We, 
therefore, suggest that the following, which has received unanimous consensus 
by the GNSO-STI, goes back to the document that will appear in version 4 of the 
Applicants’ Guidebook:</i></b>&nbsp;</font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">8.4. “Evaluation of 
Appeal: The URS should not use an ombudsman for appeals of URS decisions. URS 
appeals shall be conducted by either: (i) a three (3) person panel selected 
from a preselected pool of panellists, or (ii) three (3) panellists, with one 
appointed by each of the parties and third panellist selected by the other two 
panellists or by the service provider. In the interest of time and efficiency, 
both options shall be provided to the Appellant by the URS Service 
Providers”.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 
0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">Last but not least, the revised ICANN Staff Paper has omitted the 
important and unanimous decision of the GNSO-STI to subject the URS to a 
mandatory review. There has not been any suggestion during the public comment 
period to the contrary. Needless to say that there is no justification for this 
omission and in the name of securing the future, success and fairness of the 
URS process, section 10 of the GNSO-STI recommendation should be included in 
this revised version. Specifically and according to the GNSO-STI’s unanimous 
recommendation “<b>ICANN will conduct a review of the URS one year after the 
first date of operation. There is no requirement that the URS should 
automatically expire of terminate after any set period of time. ICANN will 
publish examination statistics for use in the review of the 
URS</b>”.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; 
text-align: justify; font: 11.0px Helvetica; min-height: 13.0px"><br></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px 
Helvetica"><b>Trademark Clearinghouse (TMC)</b></font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">NCUC considers that 
the revised proposal for the creation of a Trademark Clearinghouse (TMC) 
generally represents the ideas and vision of the GNSO Special Trademark Issues 
(STI) report. However, we feel that there are some specific issues that ICANN 
should clarify and address.</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 
0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" 
style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">We would like to point to page 2 of the revised 
report, which states: <b>“As set forth more fully below, there had been some 
suggestions that the role of the Clearinghouse be expanded beyond trademark 
rights and that the data which can be submitted be expanded beyond trademarks 
and service marks.</b> <b>As described below, there is no prohibition against 
that Trademark Clearinghouse Service Provider providing ancillary services, if 
any, as long as those services and any data used for those services are kept 
separate from the Clearinghouse database</b>”. This part creates various 
problems and opens a Pandora’s Box in relation to the services provided by the 
TMC. In relation to ancillary services, the vision of the GNSO-STI was to allow 
TMC Provider(s) to provide ancillary services, <b>but only those directly 
related to trademark issues; not ancillary services pertaining to every single 
intellectual property right</b>. The GNSO-STI unanimously approved ‘Trademark 
Clearinghouse’ as an official name for the Clearinghouse, replacing this way 
the IRT’s ‘IP Clearinghouse’ wording. This change in the name was not merely 
one of semantics; it reflected the explicit wish of the GNSO-STI to limit and 
restrict the role, scope and services of the Clearinghouse to only 
trademark-related issues specifically. The above-mentioned wording of the 
revised TMC proposal seems to be affording the TMC Provider(s) the discretion 
to include any type of ancillary services – trademark-related or not. We, 
therefore, urge the ICANN staff to rephrase this part of the report, adhering 
to the limited role of the Trademark Clearinghouse, and <b>replace the term 
“ancillary services” with “ancillary trademark services” in order to reflect 
the GNSO-STI’s vision</b>. (Section 6.1 language of GNSO-STI 
report)</font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; 
text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">NCUC would also like to comment on the issue that appears to have 
generated a great debate – namely, the inclusion and mandatory pre-launch use 
of those marks from jurisdictions that they do not conduct substantive review. 
NCUC does appreciate the reasons for the recommendations of the revised ICANN 
staff proposals to have these marks included in the Clearinghouse and make them 
part of the Mandatory Pre-Launch use of the Trademark Clearinghouse. However, 
we would also like to draw the attention of ICANN, GAC and the wider Internet 
community to the possibility of this provision creating ‘<b>trademark 
havens’</b>, where deceptive and frivolous mark owners may turn to register 
their marks ‘easier’ and avoid being subjected to rigorous and intense 
trademark tests applied by the majority of jurisdictions around the world. This 
possibility will cause significant problems to existing trademark owners, but 
more importantly, to non-commercial Registrants and individual users. We, 
therefore, request ICANN to ensure that the Trademark Clearinghouse is 
subjected to periodic reviews in order to ensure that the trademarks derived 
from these ‘<b>trademark havens’</b> constitute legitimate use of a trademark 
right including undergoing substantive review.</font></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">Moreover, section 5 of 
the revised proposal on the Trademark Clearinghouse, entitled ‘Data 
Authentication Guidelines’, is incomplete. Another necessary and indispensable 
criterion for inclusion in the Clearinghouse should be added: the data needs to 
be also authenticated in relation to the classification of the trademark under 
a specific class of goods and/or services – an important restriction on 
trademark rights. Therefore, section 5 should be amended to also include a 
<b>list cataloguing the Classes of Goods and/or Services in line with the 
International Classification Scheme for Goods and/or Services as well as a 
description of these goods and services.&nbsp; Failing to include the specific 
class information for a trademark in the TMC will inevitably lead to confusion, 
conflation and an expansion in trademark rights.</b></font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: 
justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px Helvetica">NCUC 
also believes that the staff-revised Trademark Clearinghouse makes an 
unnecessary and illegitimate distinction between valid trademark registrations. 
The new proposal prohibits trademarks with a gTLD extension to be listed in the 
Clearinghouse’s database. More specifically and according to the proposal 
‘Registrations that include top level extensions such as ‘.com’ as part of the 
trademark or service mark will not be permitted in the Clearinghouse regardless 
of whether a registration has issued (i.e., if a trademark existed for 
example.com, example.com would not be permitted in the Clearinghouse). <b>This 
is arbitrary and unfair</b>. National Patent and Trademark Offices around the 
world (including that of the United States and the United Kingdom) have made 
room and have produced guidelines that allow for the registration of names with 
a gTLD extension as long as they meet the traditional trademarkability 
requirements. ICANN, and the wider community, has to bear in mind that there 
are small and medium-sized businesses – representing both commercial and 
not-commercial interests – that operate solely on the Internet. These 
businesses have acquired valid trademark rights and have gone through the solid 
and traditional trademark assignment test. <b>There is no reason or 
justification for their exclusion from the database</b>.</font></p><p 
align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; 
font: 11.0px Helvetica; min-height: 13.0px"><br></p><p align="justify" 
style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify"><font 
face="Helvetica" size="4" style="font: 14.0px Helvetica"><b>Concluding 
Comments</b></font></p><p align="justify" style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 
0.0px; text-align: justify"><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 11.0px 
Helvetica">Although NCUC believes that overall the ICANN staff-revised 
proposals adhere generally to the recommendations and vision of the GNSO-STI 
team, at the same time we feel that some additions have been made in the 
revised proposals, which jeopardize the bottom-up processes of ICANN, the work 
of the GNSO-STI and endanger the rights and legitimate interests of registrants 
and non-commercial users. Given the lack of justification for their insertion 
and the way they deflect the compromises achieved by the GNSO-STI, we urge 
their removal from the text included in version 4 of the Applicants’ 
Guidebook.&nbsp; NCUC, and specifically its GNSO-STI members, stand ready and 
willing to consult with ICANN and the rest of the community to further refine 
the GNSO’s new gTLD policy in a manner that reflects the consensus of the GNSO 
and promotes the global public interest.&nbsp; Thank you.</font></p><div 
style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 
0px; text-align: justify; font: normal normal normal 11px/normal Helvetica; 
min-height: 13px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; 
margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-align: justify; font: normal normal 
normal 11px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 13px; "><span 
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style="font-size: 11px;"><br></span></font></span></div><div> <span 
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class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div><br 
class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>IP JUSTICE</div><div>Robin Gross, 
Executive Director</div><div>1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA&nbsp; 
94117&nbsp; USA</div><div>p: +1-415-553-6261 &nbsp; &nbsp;f: 
+1-415-462-6451</div><div>w: <a 
href="http://www.ipjustice.org";>http://www.ipjustice.org</a>&nbsp; &nbsp; 
&nbsp;e:&nbsp;<a 
href="mailto:robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx";>robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx</a></div><br 
class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> 
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