Trademark Clearinghouse Independent Review

Overview
Goals
Review Areas
Review Timeline
Relevant Resources

News

23 February 2017 – Revised Report of the Independent Review of the Trademark Clearinghouse Now Available
27 September 2016 – Report of Public Comments
25 July 2016 – Draft Report of the Independent Review of the Trademark Clearinghouse Available for Public Comment

Overview

Based on the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) recommendation in May 2011 for a comprehensive post-launch independent review of the Trademark Clearinghouse to be conducted one year after the launch of the 75th new gTLD in the round, ICANN has commissioned an independent review to assess processes pertaining to the Clearinghouse in conjunction with the specified areas for review proposed by the GAC, which include the issue of non-exact matches and ongoing Claims. Analysis Group, the vendor selected to conduct this review, expects a revised Report to be published and provided to the GAC for their review and consideration in the beginning of Q1 2017.

Goals

Perform a thorough assessment of the effectiveness of the TMCH services in meeting their intended rights protection objectives
Identify other issues for evaluation that should be included in the analysis of the Trademark Clearinghouse, such as issues that could be addressed in policy development work in the community
Help inform the discussion and enable consideration of the rights protection mechanisms available in the domain name space

Review Areas

This review will examine the effectiveness of the (a) Trademark Clearinghouse Guidelines and Verification Process; (b) Sunrise Period; and (c) Trademark Claims Service. Within these areas, we have identified other related topics to support a more detailed analysis in combination with the GAC specified areas for review, which include:

With regard to the issue of non-exact matches:
1. To assess whether domain names that include a mark at the beginning or the end of an applied for second level domain could be included in the services.
2. To establish whether the automated system should be enhanced to include key terms associated with the goods or services identified by the mark, and typographical variations identified by the rights holder.
With regard to the issue of ongoing Claims:
1. A consultation with registry providers, registrants and rights holders on the benefits or otherwise of extending the period of the Clearinghouse notifications beyond 90 days.
2. An analysis of the impact of the operation of the Clearinghouse notifications on the commercial watch services market.
3. An assessment of the likely resource requirements for extending the operation of the Clearinghouse notifications to potential registrants for the life of each new registry.