According to the WorldTrademarkReview.com, trademark holders are planning on making a big push for more protections for them and less rights for domain name holders during the ICANN board meets with the Government Advisory Council (GAC) next month before the ICANN March meeting in SF.

      The GAC is an ICANN advisory group made up of representatives from many governments.

      As we reported from the ICANN Colombia meeting, the Government representatives which apparently were heavily and effective lobbied by the trademark interests gave the ICANN board a good working over regarding not having enough protections for trademark holders.

      Of course trademark holders protections come at the expense of domain holders which as we have discussed for years, have for whatever reasons, by in large had no interest in ICANN matters or spending money to lobby decision makers.

      “"Thanks to the strident approach of ICANN’s Government Advisory Committee (GAC), brand owners have won what is being described as an “unprecedented opportunity” to convince ICANN’s board of how to protect trademarks rights under new gTLDs. The board has agreed to meet with the GAC in a meeting rumoured to be planned for 28 February to 1 March in Brussels. Meanwhile, the GAC has appointed one person to collect community thought on this topic: UK government representative Mark Carvell. Carvell called a meeting in London last Friday to hear industry’s suggestions for how to overcome the stalemate of rights protection. With input from Vodafone, BBC, Richemont, BSkyB, News International and Shell, the discussion kept returning to the IRT recommendations."”

      Still on the trademark holders wish list are the:

      The globally protected marks list (GPML).

      Making The Uniform Rapid Suspension (URS) system cheaper and quicker for trademark holders to take domains away.

      “I’ve heard there’s the attitude among the board to revisit the URS,” Carvell was told by one source. “There is a chance that you could get the board to roll back to the original URS.”

      “Alternatively, the GAC could start higher with the strategy of settling on mechanisms similar to those proposed by the IRT.”

      Mr. Carvell as we reported from the ICANN Colombia meeting was the most outspoken of the Government representatives and it seems he wants even stricter more comprehensive protections for trademark holders.

Source from The Domains