IPC Trip Proposal 1

South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law (SAIIPL)

Norton Rose Fulbright South Africa Inc.

The Adams & Adams Law Firm

The IPC proposal is to use CROPP funding for an individual IPC member, David Taylor, to participate in the Advanced ADR Domain Name Workshop to be held on February 23, 2017 in Pretoria, South Africa.  The event is being hosted by the South African Institute of Intellectual Property Law (SAIIPL) and the Adams & Adams Law Firm.  The IPC currently only has a single member located in the Africa region, Charne Le Roux, who is a partner with the Adams & Adams Law Firm hosting the event.  In order to expand IPC membership and participation in the Africa region, the IPC has identified Mr. Taylor, an experienced IPC member who will be traveling from outside the Africa region, to join Ms. Le Roux for the event. 

Mr. Taylor will present on topics covered during the event (in particular ICANN RPMs including the UDRP and URS) and conduct the outreach for new ICANN participants and IPC members in conjunction with this speaking role. Mr. Taylor will work with Ms. Le Roux (IPC member and event liaison) to promote IPC activities, and the recent developments at ICANN, in particular ICANN’s proposed policy development process to review all the Rights Protection Mechanisms in all gTLDs.  As noted above, Ms. Le Roux is the only IPC member currently located in this CROPP region, and her firm is hosting the event.  Thus, the CROPP funding is needed to facilitate an more experienced IPC member from outside the region to join the event to support efforts to educate possible new IPC members in the region about ICANN and the IPC.

There is precedent for using CROPP funding to support travelers from outside the CROPP event region, including prior support for a Canada-based IPC member to travel to Serbia for an IP conference during which the CROPP-supported member joined a local IPC-member host and liaison to speak regarding ICANN, the role of intellectual property in the work of ICANN, and the role of the IPC as a voice for intellectual property owner representatives within ICANN.  

Given the very limited IPC participation in the Africa region, we believe it is important to use this particular trip funding to support an out-of-region traveler in this instance, in the hopes of creating a more substantial membership base in the region in order to conduct future in-region support through CROPP.

This event anticipates attracting many intellectual property practitioners in South Africa and the broader southern African region, creating an opportunity for the IPC to conduct outreach to these individuals in order to grow the membership of the IPC, and thereby grow the ICANN volunteer community.  It is critical that ICANN allocate CROPP funding as requested so the IPC can grow its Africa-based membership, which is a primary purpose of the program (to support outreach and engagement in under-served or underrepresented regions).  This is reflected in the IPC FY 17 Outreach & Engagement Strategic Plan: IPC Outreach Strategic Plan DRAFT[community.icann.org].