<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=windows-1252"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Riaz - </div><div><br></div><div>In my view, it would indeed represent very significant mission creep if it were a </div><div>general purpose "Trademark Clearinghouse", as one might presume from its title. </div><div>A more descriptive title for the database/service might be:</div><div><br></div><div> "ICANN New gTLD Registration Process Trademark Registration Database"</div><div><br></div><div>i.e. it's germane solely to ICANN's New gTLD registration process, and not </div><div>any more general scope or purpose (at least as far as I can determine)</div><div><br></div><div>(It does make one wonder why ICANN had to create this, and could not just</div><div>automatically provide such notices based some existing trademark db, but </div><div>that turns out to be a very difficult task; an excellent overview of some of the </div><div>challenges can be found in this WIPO IP Authorities Symposium presentation - </div><div><a href="http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/wipo_ip_aut_ge_11/wipo_ip_aut_ge_11_t.ppt">http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/mdocs/en/wipo_ip_aut_ge_11/wipo_ip_aut_ge_11_t.ppt</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>FYI,</div><div>/John</div><div><br></div><div>Disclaimers: My views alone. All marks reserved. ;-)</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div>On Mar 14, 2013, at 3:00 AM, Riaz K Tayob <<a href="mailto:riaz.tayob@gmail.com">riaz.tayob@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">
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ye ol mission creep formalised... <br>
<br>
<h2 class="posttitle"> ICANN Trademark Clearinghouse To Start
Accepting Registrations This Month </h2>
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</span> </p><p>Intellectual Property Watch</p><p>By Kelly Burke for <em>Intellectual Property Watch </em></p><p>The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
has announced that its Trademark Clearinghouse database, through
which rights holders can submit their eligible trademarks prior to
and during ICANN’s launch of new domains, will start operating on
26 March.</p><p>Any trademark holder, private person, or company can submit their
trademark, according to the <a href="http://trademark-clearinghouse.com/">clearinghouse website</a>. The
registry is intended to make it easy for rights holders to track
potentially infringing registrations. ICANN is the domain name
system technical oversight body.</p><p>The clearinghouse will accept trademarks that are nationally or
regionally registered trademarks; protected by statue or
treaty; validated through a court of law or other judicial
proceeding; or others that constitute intellectual property
rights. Full clearinghouse guidelines can be found <a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/TMCH-guidelines-v1.0-_1.pdf">here</a> [pdf].</p><p>The verified data in the Trademark Clearinghouse will be used to
support both sunrise services and trademark claims, according to a
clearinghouse <a href="http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/faqs" target="_blank">FAQ page</a> provided by ICANN. The 30-day
sunrise service period allows users an “advance opportunity to
register domain names corresponding to their marks before names
are generally available to the public.” After the sunrise period
expires, the claims service will send an automatic notification to
a trademark holder who has signed up if another user applies to
register a domain name that directly matches the trademark.</p><p>The Trademark Clearinghouse is part of ICANN’s new generic
top-level domain (gTLD) process implemented last year (<a href="http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/01/31/new-internet-domain-process-off-to-smooth-start-icann-says/"><em>IPW</em>,
Information and Communications Technology/Broadcasting, 31
January 2012</a>). The clearinghouse was intended to address
trademark holders’ concerns about the large expansion of new
domains.</p>
</div>
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