GI Proponents Seek Recognition In New Internet Domains Programme At ICANN

By Catherine Saez

In the run-up to next week’s meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a lobby group promoting the recognition and the protection of geographical indications has sent a letter to ICANN requesting that better consideration be given to GI owners’ rights under ICANN’s programme of new domain names.

ICANN 47 will take place in Durban, South Africa, from 14-18 July.

In its letter, the Organization for an International Geographical Indications Network (oriGIn) welcomed the recent decision by ICANN to “take into account some of the recommendations of the GAC [Governmental Advisory Committee],” which were formulated in the ICANN 46 meeting in April in Beijing.

OriGIn also said that the final draft of the new generic top-level domain (gTLD) Registry Agreement [pdf] did not provide enough protection of “the legitimate rights” of GI owners regarding “geographical names which might be used in second level and/or other registrations.” The letter calls on ICANN to set up a dispute resolution system.

“We believe it is crucial that the process for the attribution of new gTLDs be fully compatible with the internationally accepted rules on Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and, therefore, consider GIs as prior rights deserving protection in case of irregular use in new gTLDs,” the letter says.

The letter referenced GIs under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects on Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). “A vast majority of WTO Member States have issued specific laws on GIs and established transparent lists of the national and foreign GIs protected within their jurisdiction. Denying protection to GIs in the ICANN new gTLDs process would amount to not respecting the internationally recognised rules on IPRs and would weaken the overall new gTLDs system,” it says.