Intellectual Property Law

Statement of ICANN’s Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) on the Trademark Clearinghouse Talks and Staff Strawman Model

Posted on January 14, 2013
At ICANN?s 45th international meeting in Toronto in October 2012, ICANN?s Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies sent a letter to ICANN to request that additional changes be made to the policies for new top-level domain names. Despite the fact that the current policy had been long finalized via a painstakingly arduous consensus process in which all stakeholders compromised and ultimately reached unanimous agreement, nonetheless the IPC and BC sent a letter to Fadi Chehade, the new CEO, and the ICANN Board of Directors with 8-points for consideration and policy modification...

ICANN’s 11th-Hour Domain Name Trademark Policy Negotiations: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly — Dissecting the Strawman

Posted on November 18, 2012
ICANN organized a meeting on 15-16 November 2012 in Los Angeles, the Trademark Clearinghouse policy negotiations, to consider the 8-point policy requests sent by the Intellectual Property and Business Constituencies to the ICANN board and senior staff at the October 2012 Toronto ICANN meeting...

Statement of ICANN?s Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group on Proposals for Additional Trademark Rights Protection Measures for New Top-Level Domain Names

Posted on November 02, 2012
* NCSG is concerned by proposals from the IPC and BC to change consensus policy and re-open previously settled policy matters on Rights Protection Mechanisms for new tlds. * The proposal under discussion does not reflect the hard-won balance found in the current consensus policy, nor the traditional limitations that exist in trademark law...

EU Privacy Officials Warn ICANN that Its Proposals Violate Internet Users’ Legal Rights

Posted on October 06, 2012
European Commission privacy authority, the Article 29 Working Party, asks ICANN to hear from privacy officials in the course of its policy development process. Presently, ICANN only hears from law enforcement agencies and thus lacks the balanced input required for governance.

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Top Civil Society Leaders Converge in Toronto for “ICANN & Internet Governance: Security and Freedom in a Connected World”

Posted on October 04, 2012
Cyber-Security Expert Ron Deibert and new ICANN CEO Fadi Chehade Address Non-Commercial Users Policy Conference on Eve of ICANN #45 - Public interest groups involved in ICANN will gather for the event, "ICANN & Internet Governance: Security & Freedom in a Connected World" on Friday 12 October at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada...

IP Justice Comment on Olympic Committee and Red Cross Requests to be Granted Global Exclusive Licensing Rights to Words in the DNS

Posted on July 24, 2012
The comment was filed in response to requests from the International Olympic Committee and Red Cross groups who have asked ICANN to grant them the exclusive right to use in domain names several hundred words that these groups claim are their "exclusive property"...

Non-Commercial Users Send Letter to Privacy Commissioners on Proposed Changes to ICANN Registrar Agreement

Posted on July 19, 2012
NCUC's letter requests that privacy experts and officers review and consider the privacy impacts of ICANN's new contracts ? in particular the summary of the negotiating team?s responses to law enforcement demands for collecting and providing personal information about Internet users.

IP Justice Comment on Request to ICANN from Red Cross & Olympic Committee to Ban Others’ Use of Words in Domain Names

Posted on March 04, 2012
Today I write to express my personal disappointment with the way ICANN has mis-handled this request for special rights to prohibit the use of certain words in domain names which are desired by politically powerful, but ultimately arbitrary, interests...

NCUC Letter to US Congressional Committee to Express Concern about Internet Censorship from SOPA/PIPA

Posted on December 14, 2011
ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC) today sent a letter to the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives to express concern over the harmful impact from proposed legislation in the US Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA)...

45 Public Interest Groups Send Letter to WIPO on IP Enforcement Activities

Posted on December 06, 2011
Forty-five civil society groups concerned about efforts to ratchet-up the enforcement of intellectual property rights beyond healthy levels sent a letter to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) this week to their express concern on WIPO's continued promotion of a "maximalist" agenda with respect to intellectual property rights...

Landmark Ruling for Europe on Fair Balance Between Copyright & Fundamental Human Rights

Posted on November 25, 2011
The European Union’s highest court issued a key legal ruling overturning a Belgian law that would have required Internet service providers to monitor all Internet traffic passing through their systems with the goal of protecting copyright holders’ rights...

Civil society involvement in ICANN: Strengthening future civil society influence in ICANN policymaking

Posted on September 27, 2011
By Robin Gross (Published by APC) - ICANN occupies a unique role in that it manages a global public resource (the internet?s domain name addressing space), but it shares this responsibility between businesses, governments, and civil society participants from many nations...

What does it mean for ICANN to act in the public interest?

Posted on July 08, 2011
ICANN should bake-in to its internal policy development process, consideration of the various interests and stakeholders that can together reach what can be called the 'public interest'. Consider principles that we agree help us to achieve what we think is the 'public interest,' like openness and promoting freedom and making sure the Internet enables education, communication, innovation, exploration ...

IP Justice Comments on ICANN Policy Proposal for Trademarks & New GTLDs

Posted on May 10, 2011
Statement in public forum regarding ICANN Board response to "scorecard" of the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) on trademark protections for new generic top-level Internet domain names. The GAC is pressuring the ICANN Board to dramatically expand the rights of trademark owners after heavy lobbying by trademark industry of governmental representatives who participate at ICANN.

San Francisco Civil Liberties Groups Comment on SF Entertainment Commission Proposal to Create Surveillance State in Local Arts Establishments

Posted on April 11, 2011
IP Justice signed comments from a number of San Francisco civil liberties organizations concerned about the draconian new proposal to turn local SF arts organizations into surveillance mechanisms for law enforcement. This proposal harms civil liberties like free expression and privacy and it will harm the local arts communities who will be forced to spied on their patrons if enacted...

IP Justice Statement on ICANN’s Responsibility to Respect Human Rights

Posted on March 31, 2011
"Unfortunately ICANN?s lack of commitment to internationally recognized fundamental rights and freedoms threatens the healthy growth of the DNS and the global public interest. ICANN?s structure must be rooted in a firm foundation and a legally enforceable obligation to uphold basic rights...

Support Multi-Stakeholderism at ICANN & Sign the Petition for No Govt. Veto on Domain Names

Posted on February 24, 2011
The Internet Governance Project has published a very important petition against a governmental power-grab over of the Internet's Domain Name System. Governments are pushing ICANN for a "veto" right to prevent any top-level domain "for any reason". Sign the petition to support multi-stakeholder bottom-up consensus policy at ICANN instead.

IP Justice Comments on ICANN Plans for New Top-Level Domains: Keep the Core Neutral - ICANN Should Avoid Expanding Scope of Mission to Include Enforcing “Morality” and Fighting “Terrorism”

Posted on July 21, 2010
IP Justice submitted brief comments today to ICANN regarding its plan for introducing new Top-Level Domains (TLDs). Specifically, IP Justice raised concerns about policy proposals that threaten freedom of expression on the Internet and seek to expand ICANN's mission to include ensuring "Morality and Public Order" (MAPO) and preventing "terrorism" through personal background checks...

Updated Consolidated Text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

Posted on July 14, 2010
The full consolidated text of the ACTA agreement, dated July 1st 2010 from the Luzern round of negotiations, including the name of the negotiating parties along with their positions. Sourced from the civil liberties committee (LIBE) of the European Parliament.

IP Justice Comments on ICANN Accountability & Transparency Concerns: Lack of Accountability to Non-Commercial Users Remains Problematic for ICANN?s Promise to Protect the Public Interest

Posted on July 14, 2010
IP Justice is deeply concerned that ICANN is insufficiently accountable to relevant non-commercial interests. Certain interests, such as business interests (in particular the trademark and domain name industries) are over-represented at ICANN both in structure and in practice...

Urgent Communique: International Experts Find that Pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Threatens Public Interests

Posted on June 23, 2010
A gathering of over 90 legal academics, practitioners, and public interest organizations from 6 continents met at American University Washington College of Law last week to draft an Urgent Communique concerning the public interest aspects of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)...

Sign the International Civil Society Declaration on the Public Interest Concerns of the Proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

Posted on June 19, 2010
Please consider endorsing the International Civil Society Declaration, which was the result of a meeting in Washington, DC (16-18 June 2010) of over 90 academics from 5 continents, public interest organizations and other legal experts concerned with the public interest aspects of ACTA.

Statement of the Non-Commercial Stakeholder Group (NCSG) and the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) on Transparency and ICANN Staff Documents

Posted on May 21, 2010
ICANN's transparency commitment demands the adoption of a principle of default openness for all Board communications except in those specific instances where it is over-ridden, in writing, by the principle of personal privacy or an explicit requirement of confidentiality...

IP Justice Statement to ICANN on Need to Respect Decision of Independent Review Panel on .XXX Domain

Posted on May 10, 2010
IP Justice supports the swift adoption of the decision of the Independent Review Panel (IRP) by ICANN and the inclusion of the applied for .xxx domain name into the root. This IRP decision should not be, and cannot be, a referendum on pornography as some comments urge...

Copyright for Creativity - A Declaration for Europe

Posted on May 10, 2010
The Copyright for Creativity Declaration embodies a new approach to European copyright - an approach where everyone benefits, innovation is fostered, creativity is incentivised and rewarded and access to the fruits of the European creative spirit is improved for all Europeans...

2010 USTR Special 301 Report

Posted on April 30, 2010
United States Trade Representative (USTR) Special 301 Report: Who's been naughty and who's been nice to US intellectual property interests (according to the USTR)? 2010 Country "Watch" Lists.

Draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) Finally Revealed

Posted on April 29, 2010
After 2 years of secret negotiations and numerous complaints about the lack of transparency in the treaty drafting process, on 21 April 2010 the US Trade Representative Office (USTR) finally released a draft of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)...

Lack of Transparency Surrounding Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) Negotiations Causes Concern For Many Public Interest Groups

Posted on November 06, 2009
The proposed global treaty to address intellectual property rights in a digital environment spurs letters, petitions to US Obama Administration to open the process to public view. The public interest and the concerns of developing countries and small business have been left out of international treaty negotiation process to date providing a skewed proposal, a new leak has confirmed.

IP Justice and Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure File Amicus Brief to US Supreme Court on Software Patents

Posted on October 08, 2009
Two international intellectual property policy groups IP Justice and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in the United States Supreme Court in the Bilski v. Kappos case dealing with software patents...

US Agreement With ICANN Leaves Much Undone: The oversight of the Internet’s infrastructure will become more international under a new government agreement with ICANN. But many concerns remain unresolved (Information Week)

Posted on October 03, 2009
The US government appears to be loosening its grip on the governance of the Internet, a move welcomed by many. But critics see the government shirking its obligations to support free expression and free trade. ... ICANN can interfere with freedom of expression by censoring the domain name space and regulating the use of the space indirectly...

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