GeorgeK writes "ICANN just announced:

"ICANN Lawsuit Update: Judge Rules in ICANN's Favor and Denies Application for Temporary Restraining Order 30 November 2005

A US Federal Judge has ruled in ICANN's favor and denied an application for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against ICANN sought by industry group CFIT in the US District Court, Northern District of California.

The application for a TRO was an attempt to block the proposed settlement of a long-standing dispute between ICANN and VeriSign."

I believe ICANN won this ruling on technical grounds, because the TRO was sought way too soon. There was no imminent harm. In particular, it would have made more sense to bring it after the ICANN Board voted to accept the proposed settlement, and thus before the US DOC had to approve it. Right now, ICANN can dance around saying it's just a "proposal", and win motions like these. The actual ruling hasn't been posted to ICANN's litigation page yet (that litigation page hasn't been updated in ages, so it would be nice if they checked if there are unposted documents from the other cases, once their staff is back from partying, errr, "consulting with the public" in Vancouver).

I doubt CFIT would have expected to win the TRO, so it's questionable why they made the strategic choice to do it, and thus lose momentum. Their lawsuit could have been filed equally well without the TRO application."

[Editor's note: Looking at the court order, I have to agree with Bret Fausett's analysis. I think this order is entirely about timing, not merits. And the move to convert a TRO application to an ordinary injunction AFAIK is quite routine. -mf]