Afilias - the Protector of Trademark Rights

I have only looked at the names that were registered as part of the Sunrise Policy and Period. I have not been concerned with other names that Afilias may have reserved by agreement with ICANN as they were not part of the Sunrise Process. The three names that I mentioned in the article were registered as Sunrise names with a trademark claim. If you look at the WHOIS records, they all have the four trademark fields in common with all other Sunrise names. The other reserved names do not.

There was no misinformation in the article.

I followed up on dot.info because there was direct evidence that Afilias had prevented its registration by someone who applied to do so and was qualified to do so under its Sunrise Policy.

I am not aware if anyone applied for any of the other reserved names as part of the Sunrise Process. If so, I would be happy to hear the details.

If ICANN, through its registry agreement with Afilias, condoned Afilias registering trademarked names to which it had no intellectual property right then I think that fact simply adds ICANN as a party to a breach of the Sunrise Policy rather than exonerate Afilias.

Or are your aguing that a decision by ICANN or Afilias that they have a right to a domain name override the intellectual property rights of others?

Take a look at the list of names reserved by Afilias registrars - and accepted as legitimate by Afilias as part of a registrar's 'right' to reserve names for their own use (to be published later today if accepted by the moderators of ICANNWatch). Then talk to me about the legitimacy of registy/register reserved names...

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Wrong Appendix by JeffD

Get Afilias
by JeffD on Tuesday July 15 2003, @05:48AM (#11965)
User #3702 Info

Your reply reeks of Afilias. The need for anonymity is always suspicious.

Unfortunately, you are wrong again.

First, Sunrise registrations are, by Afilias' definition, all registrations that have creation dates within the Sunrise Period. nic.info is, thereby, a Sunrise registration. The required trademark information for Sunrise names has also been entered (although it is erroneous).

Second, nic.info was registered by Afilias - not ICANN - in the Sunrise period. The record may have been amended later to show ICANN as the registrant but I assure you it was registered by Afilias. You will note that the registrant email is still support@afilias.info - as it was when frst registered by Afilias. To ascertain the true 'owner', you may also want to enter nic.info into your browser and see if it points to ICANN's website or Afilias'...!

Third, your comments are a 'red herring' to divert attention from and subvert the real issue - and whole point of the article - which is, whether it is legitimate for Afilias (or ICANN as well if you prefer) to pre-emptively register names that are trademarks of others while ostensibly granting trademark holders a preferential right to register 'their' name. This is particularly so where the reserved name is used for no other purpose than to be yet another pointer to existing content (www.info, nic.info, dot.info, www,info, etc. all point to the same afilias.info page). What's wrong with allowing the trademark holder use it for their (obviously legitimate) purpose? Better yet, let some new registrant use it for an uninfringing use that will provide some new Internet content? Isn't that what the release of new gTLD's was supposed to accomplish???

By the way, I fund my own reesearch for my own edification.

Jeff Davies

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