[nc-udrp] WIPO Recommendations for modification of the UDRP

["John Berryhill Ph.D. J.D." <john@johnberryhill.com>]

Perhaps to indicate that there is no longer a WIPO representative on the UDRP
Review Task Force, WIPO has transmitted its recommendations for modification
of the UDRP to ICANN:
http://www.icann.org/correspondence/gurry-letter-to-cerf-lynn-21feb03.htm


I - Country Names

WIPO recommends modifying the UDRP to apply to registrations of country
names.  Interestingly, though, the letter states: "It was recommended that
this protection should be implemented through an amendment of the UDRP and
should apply to all future registrations of domain names in the gTLDs."

I guess the bottom line is that if you can think of a country name that is
not yet registered as a domain name, then the time to act is now.

"DemocraticPeoplesRepublicOfKorea" is available in .com, .net, and .org.
However the name of every WIPO member country voting in favor of the proposal
is already taken.

II - IGO's

The other recommendation is for the sole qualified registrants for the .int
top-level domain, should be able to confuse their official TLD by having the
same registration in every other TLD.  So, for example, the company in New
Jersey which owns the US Registered Trademark for "WIPO" for a brand of paper
towel, should be permanently prohibited from ever obtaining a domain name
identical with their trademark.

III - INN's / Geographic Terms

WIPO has given up on INN's, now that they have found that most INN's
registered as domain names are in fact registered to large pharmaceutical
companies, in contrast to the limited "findings" in their initial report.
Apparently, they also discovered that "IP" in WIPO stands for "intellectual
property" and that "N" in INN stands for Non-Proprietary.  It took about two
years to figure that out.