Page History

Notes/ Action Items

Action Items:

1. WG members invited to comment on whether the Additional Marketplace RPMs questions are in good enough form to send to Registry Operators for answers
2. Co-Chairs and staff to identify the targeted respondents for each question
3. Staff to research information published on websites of Registry Operators and TMCH providers, and provide links to information relevant to the Additional Marketplace RPMs questions, as well as a summary of the information that is discovered to be reviewed by the WG

Notes:

These high-level notes are designed to help PDP WG members navigate through the content of the call and are not meant as a substitute for the transcript and/or recording. The MP3, transcript, and chat are provided separately and are posted on the wiki here. 

1. Roll call/updates to SOI

•  None declared

2. Discuss proposed list of questions from Additional Marketplace RPMs Sub Team

• General question(s)/comment(s):
  • Sub Team did not make a list of data sources to collect in order to assist in answering the questions – following the WG review of these questions, if the WG agrees that data is required and if those are identified, they may be added to the current request being considered by the GNSO Council, noting that the data request submitted to the GNSO was specific to Sunrise Registrations and Trademark Claims – not known if this will require additional resources
  • If data is required, the WG will need to identify which Registry Operators run protected marks lists programs, and will have to carefully take into account when those programs came into effect - example: Donuts ran that program, but implemented it for gTLDs that it subsequently acquired, so might have provided Additional Marketplace RPMs following the Sunrise Period for those particular gTLDs
  • If statistics on DPML registrations are collected, would need to collect this data in a time-series format – different numbers of strings would be covered by a Protected Marks Lists depending on the date and the marketing of the program, and the increasing number of gTLDs being covered by the program
• Preliminary Note:
  • Original set of questions drafted by the Co-Chairs included a preliminary note from them, most of which was retained in the draft final report, as it provides the backdrop of what the Sub Team was meant to do
  • Only addition is the third paragraph that noted that some questions were deleted, with a link to where they have been archived as per the Sub Team request
• Question 1:
  • This question was moved up the list to serve as an overarching issue on the topic of Additional Marketplace RPMs
• Question 2:
  • Regarding the use of the term “non-mandated”, should a complete list of non-mandated RPMs be provided in order to mitigate against each WG member developing his/her understanding of what those might be?
• Question 3:
  • Not clear what relevance the information being sought has in determining the effectiveness of the ICANN-mandated RPMs – specifically, the question is asking who gets what information from where; how does this assist in understanding the effectiveness of RPMs such as the UDRP, URS or Sunrise?
  • Sub Team discussed this question and was somewhat split on whether to include the question, or not - but may be useful in terms of evaluating different uses of the TMCH takes place to support services beyond the ICANN-mandated RPMs
  • Primary purpose of retaining this question was to provide a greater understanding of the relationship between Additional Marketplace RPMs, and data made available via the TMCH
  • Explanatory note included for the benefit of the WG members - no plans to include it in potential surveys
  • These questions are not a questionnaire to go to others so much as the questions we think this WG should be considering. They may give rise to questions we ask others.
• Question 4:
  • Should the question in the first bullet be sent along with the questionnaire planned to be sent to TM owners (especially those who might have experienced being blocked by a Protected Marks List) on Sunrise and Trademark Claims?
  • The question presumes that it is possible for a trademark owner to use a Protected Marks List on a category of goods and services basis – is this level of granularity in the Protected Marks List service true?
  • The question is attempting to seek clarification on whether a Registry Operator that provides a Protected Marks List service is indeed providing protection to trademarks in their respective categories of goods and services, or whether the protection is not restricted to these verticals, and provides blocking services across all of the Registry Operator’s gTLDs – if true, this might affect trademark owners who own the same trademark in different categories of goods and services
  • Question may need to be reworded to clarify its intent
  • Might be more practical to send the question to Registry Operators who provide Additional Marketplace RPMs, as they develop their own rules, and would be in a better position to provide a response
• Question 5:
  • Regarding the term "exact matches", Donuts provides a service titled "DPML Plus" (http://donuts.domains/what-we-do/brand-protection/), which provides expanded matches - will this be addressed?
  • The Sub Team focused on exact matches only
  • Operators that extend the TM Claims Service beyond the mandated 90 days will only result in receipt of notices that correspond to exact matches to registrations in the TMCH - expanded matches should not be relevant to this question
  • Question 5 deals with the Claim services. Question 4 deals with DPML and speaks to the fact that there were variants of the DPMLs.
• Question 6:
  • No comments or questions
• Next Steps:
  • ACTION ITEM: WG members invited to comment on whether the Additional Marketplace RPMs questions are in good enough form to send to Registry Operators for answers
  • ACTION ITEM: Co-Chairs and staff to identify who the targets of each one of the questions are, and report back to the WG with suggestions
  • The WG needs to discuss whether there is any data relevant to answering the questions, and identify the sources for this data
  • Some of the information being sought is already available, so will not be necessary to request information from stakeholders, such as Registry Operators who publish their rules of use of the Additional Marketplace RPMs - this data can be collected and analyzed by staff and reported back to the Co-Chairs and the full WG
  • May still be useful to at least share the questions with others such as Registry Operators and Deloitte for feedback on the questions themselves, and what input they might have on the data that may be helpful to collect
  • Responses from Registry Operators may potentially be qualitatively superior to what is published on their websites as well as supplement what may be learnt from information on their websites, and may reveal how Additional Marketplace RPMs affect ICANN-mandated RPMs
  • May also be useful to get an understanding how the policies governing the Additional Marketplace RPMs have evolved over time – this would require Registry Operator input
  • ACTION ITEM: Staff to research information published on websites of Registry Operators and TMCH providers, and provide links to information relevant to the Additional Marketplace RPMs questions, as well as a summary of the information that is discovered to be reviewed by the WG
  • WG members may identify additional follow-up questions to the information that is publicly available
  • Staff is already starting to compile data in spreadsheets with tables and graphs on Sunrise Registrations including numbers of Sunrise Registrations, what types of registries offered them, as well as start and end dates for Sunrise Periods
  • Generally, these questions appear to address and/or be asking questions from the perspectives of trademark owners and Registry Operators, but not from the perspective of registrants who are not rights holders, and might be affected by these protections - is this something we should address now or later?
  • The Sub Team had a narrow remit to develop questions that would prompt fact-based responses from Registry Operators, TMCH provider and trademark owners on how the Additional Marketplace RPMs fit in with and influence the use of the ICANN-mandated RPMs, but not broad enough to seek answers from registrants or end users on how they may be affected
  • Should some of these questions (such as the first bullet in question 4) be included in surveys targeting registrants - how these services have affected them, were their registration attempts blocked?
  • Important to bear in mind what the remit of this PDP is, which is to review the ICANN-mandated RPMs – voluntary practices being offered by Registry Operators are not within the scope of this PDP, provided that none of these services are explicitly not permitted by ICANN

3. AOB

• Co-Chairs will participate in GNSO Council meeting later today to participate in the discussion on the motion to approve the WG's DMPM request form.
• The GNSO Council meeting is audiocast live for non-Councilors to listen in. The link to the audiocast as well as the agenda for this meeting, and documents, can be found here: https://gnso.icann.org/en/meetings/agenda-council-20sep17-en.htm  
• When will responses to the questions that were sent to INTA/Nielsen be provided?
• Has the schedule been impacted by the WG call being cancelled last week? - Schedule will remain the same with the APAC time zone friendly call remaining the fourth call of the month (including the cancelled call in the count)
• PDP timeline will be revised following the Council decision on the motion regarding the data request - the Co-Chairs and staff have been discussing the timeline, and ways to improve the effectiveness of the WG in making progress

4. Next steps/next meeting

•  The next Review of all Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) in all gTLDs PDP Working Group is scheduled for Thursday, 28 September 2017 at 03:00 UTC for 90-minute duration.