Comments on the GNSO Initial Report on the IGO-INGO Access to Curative Rights Protection Mechanisms Policy Development Process

["Richard Hill" <rhill@xxxxxxxxx>]

I associate with the comments submitted by WIPO.

 

Speaking as a member of the 2004 Joint Working Group for WIPO-2 Process
Issues, it seem to me that we are still going round and round the bush: the
issues are the same and the positions seem pretty much the same to me, see:

 

http://archive.icann.org/en/committees/JWGW2/final-report/ 

 

As far as I can tell from the current GNSO Initial Report, the main reason
given for not recommending a new UDRP for IGOs is that it would be somehow
unfair to impose an arbitration clause on registrants, because that deprives
them of the possibility of suing in national courts to reverse a UDRP
decision.

 

It seems to me that this objection is weak for at least two reasons. 

 

First, if a registrant loses a UDRP case, there is a prima facie finding of
cybersquatting against an IGO name.  So it does not bother me that the
registrant has to go to an arbitration court if it wants to contest that
prima facie finding.

 

Second, the very idea of the UDRP is to create a fast and inexpensive method
to allow trademark owners to obtain redress in case of cybersquatting, with
the consequence that a registrant that loses a UDRP case has to resort to
national courts to recover the disputed domain name, if they think that the
UDRP ruling is not correct.

 

By analogy, it seems logical to me to create a fast and inexpensive method
to allow IGOs to obtain redress in case of cyberquatting, with the
consequence that a registrant that loses a UDRP case has to resort to an
arbitration court to recover the disputed domain name, if they think that
the UDRP ruling is not correct.

 

The reason why an arbitration court, rather than a national court, is
appropriate in the case of a claim made by an IGO regarding its name have
been exposed many times: basically, it is not appropriate for IGOs to
litigate matters in national courts. Litigation regarding IGOs normally
takes place in arbitration courts for what concerns commercial matters.

 

Best,

Richard Hill