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MARQUES, ICANN and Measures to Protect the Rights of Others in the
Domain Name System The Perfect Sunrise? MARQUES, the Association of European Trade Mark Owners, is one of the professional associations in membership of the IPC (Intellectual Property Constituency) of ICANN. MARQUES members are 750 trade mark experts across Europe representing many of the largest companies and best known brands. MARQUES conservatively estimates that its members together own upwards of 2.5 million domain names. Consumers across the world depend upon these domain names as a guarantee of authenticity and quality. In response to ICANN’s “New gTLD Program” which could see literally hundreds of new generic Top Level Domains introduced for bodies such as cities, communities of interest or new business ventures from Spring 2009, the IPC has produced the booklet “A Perfect Sunrise?”. A PDF of the booklet is available via the link below. With the sub-title, “How pre-launch Rights Protection Mechanisms and successful registry operations go hand in hand”, the aim of “A Perfect Sunrise?” is to suggest to those who are planning to apply for a new gTLD that protecting the rights of others is in their best interests. MARQUES is proud both to have worked with the IPC on the content of “The Perfect Sunrise?” and to have sponsored its production as part of its commitment to improve protections for the rights of others across the domain name system. MARQUES Vice-Chair Susanne Skov Nilsson who is also Head of Trademarks for VKR Holding A/S, the owner of Velux, the Denmark-based manufacturer of windows said, “As the expansion of the domain name system is inevitable, we want to play our part to make sure that the process is successful with the rights of others protected and the global operability of the internet improved”. The booklet was conceived and edited for
the IPC by Nick Wood, Council Member of
MARQUES
and Managing Director of Com Laude, a registrar that works only with IP
owners. He said, “We hope that “The Perfect
Sunrise?” may prompt potential applicants under ICANN’s new gTLD programme
to think about RPM at an early stage in their planning. Though there are
clear lessons from earlier gTLD rounds to be learned, it is not the
intention of the IPC or MARQUES to recommend one RPM system over another.
Rather we hope “The Perfect Sunrise?” will inform and educate those who do
not regularly participate in the ICANN process who may venture to submit an
application for a new gTLD.” For further information on the booklet, contact nick.wood@comlaude.com For further information on MARQUES, go to www.marques.org For further information on the ICANN New
gTD process, go to:
http://www.icann.org/topics/new-gtld-program.htm |