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WIPO To Comment On Domain Disputes
by William New
Who should have the right to Napavalley.com or Bordeaux.com? These and loftier questions of intellectual property in the Internet domain-name system are the subject of a concerted effort underway at the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
WIPO officials are on the road to various countries this month, gathering public opinion on an interim report on the abuse of certain identifiers in the domain-name system. The officials will be in Washington on May 29 for a regional consultation organized by the Patent and Trademark Office.
"This is one means of eliciting public comments," said Francis Gurry, director of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center. The final report is expected by the end of June, he said.
In this process, the second phase of a broader plan, WIPO was asked by its member countries to examine the interface between domain names and other "real world" identifiers, Gurry told National Journal's Technology Daily. "As the Internet becomes more present and penetrates deeper and deeper into society ... we see how it comes into conflict with the real-world naming system," he said.
"There are many other real-world identifiers ... that play vital roles in the areas of government (for example, the names of countries, government departments or international organizations), health ... science (for example, naming systems used for the plant and animal kingdoms), and almost any other sphere of human endeavor or activity," the interim report said.
Gurry said WIPO has been asked to share the final report with the Internet community, and he said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which oversees the domain-name system, likely would use it as a basis for action, though he could not predict the outcome at this stage. The report states that nations also could negotiate a treaty but said that would be a less desirable option.
Comments also may be submitted via WIPO's Web site. Two previous requests for comments and public meetings on the second process were held last year, leading to the interim report.
The second process began in July 2000. The first process ended in April 1999 and resulted in the ICANN's creation of a dispute-settlement system. That system, the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), entered into force in December 1999 and has seen more than 4,000 cases filed.
International System Addresses Cyber Squatting
There have been 3,700 decisions in the UDRP cases filed from 74 countries. But the system deliberately was limited to disputes related to deliberate bad-faith violations of trademarks "where the domain-name holder has no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name," according to WIPO. That practice is known as cyber squatting.
The second process goes beyond trademarks and the current concept of cyber squatting. The interim report, issued April 12, covers five new areas of bad-faith use, abuse or unfair use of domain names.
These include personal names and trade names, such as a company name like IBM or Ericsson (not just the trademarks for the companies). It also covers pharmaceutical types set by the World Health Organization's International Nonproprietary Names for Pharmaceutical Substances and implemented at the national level. An example might be amphetamines, Gurry said.
The fourth area is names of international intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations or WIPO. Finally, the report looks at geographical indications, indications of source and geographical terms.
"Wherever one looks in the physical world, there is a naming system to assist the regard, whether it be on a banal but important level, such as street names, or on a metaphysical level, such as the names in the pantheon of gods," the report said.
Most real-world naming systems are territorially bound, typically employed in a specific context. Gurry used the timely example of the horse-naming system in the United States -- for instance, the winner of the Kentucky Derby -- and how that system might differ from ones used in other countries. The rise of the Internet is highlighting such differences.
The appendices of the interim report show some interesting findings. They list names of countries, cities and so forth, plus who the registrants are. One appendix lists examples of names of indigenous peoples registered as domain names.
The limitations of the two options for implementing the final recommendations -- ICANN or treaty -- are "apparent," WIPO said in the interim report. "Those limitations call for a concerted effort to find a means of allowing social processes to be as innovative, subtle and beneficial as the technological processes that have provoked the challenges which the social processes are called upon to address," it said.
EU Data Protection Comes With Instructions
The European Commission, the European Union's regulatory arm, this week announced the publication of a new guide to data protection in the European Union. The guide provides citizens and businesses with information about their rights on the collection and use of personal data, plus how to act on the violation of those rights.
Frits Bolkestein, EU internal markets commissioner, said in a statement that, "As we are all 'data subjects', we need reassurance that our personal data is fairly treated and lawfully protected."
An Electronics Environmental Vote At EU
The European Parliament voted this week to strengthen standards for the disposal of waste electrical and electronics equipment, and the hazardous substances in such equipment.
"I would say the Parliament voted 'green,'" according to Susanne Klunkert, European affairs manager at the European Association of Consumer Electronics Manufacturers (EACEM).
European consumer electronics manufacturers were quick to criticize the action in a statement, calling it a "further step toward pushing EU producers to pump up their environmental credentials, even if it means facing painful commercial consequences in the short-to-medium term." The move is expected to "drastically" raise companies' costs as they struggle to comply with significantly higher standards -- particularly tough for smaller firms, the manufacturers said.
Member of Parliament Karl-Heinz Florenz of Germany, who led the effort, said some 6 million tons of electronics waste was generated in 1998, with an annual increase of some 3 percent to 5 percent predicted. That increase would result in a doubling of waste over the next 10 years. His proposal was to transfer some of the responsibility from the local authorities to the manufacturers by encouraging them to redesign products with recycling in mind.
Cristina Garcia Orcoyen Tormo, of Spain, sought exemptions for southern European countries. Margot Wallstrom, the representative to the parliament from the European Commission, said 14 kilograms of waste is being produced each year, per person. She said that by 2010, more than 8 percent of all municipal waste would be electrical and electronic.
The Parliament accepted numerous amendments to the original proposal. For instance, it agreed to move up a deadline for phasing out hazardous substances from January 2008 to January 2006. But it also accepted an amendment clarifying that after-sales servicing of products put on the market before the deadline are not subject to the ban on those hazardous substances.
In coming weeks, the European Commission will redraft the proposal and send it to the European Council of Ministers, the ambassadors to the European Union.
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