Theme: Intellectual Property

Has it pulled any of its 12 other applications?

The markers of lifestyle TV programmes including HGTV and the Food Network have pulled their application for the dot-glean top-level domain.

Lifestyle Domain Holdings, a subsidiary of Scripps Networks Interactive, is behind the bid and is the seventh of 13 withdrawn applications that have been named, indicating that the companies has received its $130,000 partial refund from ICANN.

Dot-glean is just one of 13 applications made by the company and earlier this year it had applied for four trademarks for the "glean" name. It did not give a reason for dropping the application, at a cost of $55,000. It is not known if the company is responsible for any of the other six unnamed withdrawals, although its dot-vana is similar in many respects to dot-glean and may also have been junked. Scripps Networks Interactive also recently received a government "early warning" over its dot-food application last month.

ICANN staff and Board has upset large parts of its own organization and again raised concerns about its suitability to manage the domain name system with a series of decisions and "forecasts" regarding its trademark new gTLD program. Following a meeting earlier this month that was announced and saw trademark owners attempt to reopen a multi-year policy process to give themselves greater protections, some were stunned when ICANN appeared to signal it was prepared to change the rules to provide additional protections. At the same time, it also announced it was planning to extend protections on all domain names for IGOs, without waiting for the formal advice it has specifically requested from its own policy body, the GNSO, and following a surprise vote not to provide some of the additional protections by that same body.

IPRota CEO Jonathan Robinson walks us through the new gTLD rights protection mechanisms, in particular the Trademark Clearinghouse.

With an explosion in Internet extensions starting in just six months, the protection of trademarks has become a "cornerstone" of the program and vital to the success of the program, argues Jonathan Robinson, the CEO of a company that specializes in making it work.

We talked to Jonathan about the various rights protection mechanisms in place, why they were crucial, and what still need to be completed before they could go live.

The biggest focus of recent attention has been the "trademark clearinghouse" that will let trademark holders register their details once and have them picked up across all new Internet registries. There are "some real issues in implementing this" explains Robinson. The "devil is in the detail" and in some cases actual efforts to put systems in place is raising questions about the original policy decisions.

ICANN COO explains the new new gTLD batching system

A break-through, a fudge, or the best of a bad job? We spoke to ICANN's Chief Operating Officer Akram Atallah about the new proposal to hold a special draw sometime in December to decide which new gTLD applications will go first.

The proposal, revealed just a few days before ICANN's meeting in Toronto, will see applicants buy a $100 ticket in order to be entered into a draw. Each applicant will then get its own number and be ranked accordingly. The lower the number, the faster your application will be processed.

The draw is likely to be held in Los Angeles - but Atallah told us that ICANN has applied for licenses in a number of different jurisdictions just in case - and you don't have to turn up in person (you can pay a law firm to represent you).

Two to read, three to watch, three to note

Watch out! It's 15 working days until the next ICANN meeting

Three times a year ICANN floods the Internet community with documents. This Monday 4 June was one of those days. The next will be on 24 September.

The reason behind the flood is quite simple: it is 15 working days until ICANN's meeting on Prague and according to the organization's Document Publication Operational Policy [pdf], staff is obliged to provide documents before the cut-off if they want them to be discussed at the meeting.

Sky has joined other major UK broadband providers in blocking access to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Last week, the organisation cut off access to the Swedish site following a court order, filed under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act and obtained by the British Phonographic Industry. Sky follows Virgin Media and Everything Everywhere in barring access to the site. O2, TalkTalk and BT are expected to do the same. The ban is a win for the entertainment industry, which started targeting broadband providers after legal challenges to the file-sharing websites themselves failed. The decision about The Pirate Bay follows a landmark ruling about a similar site Newzbin2 last year.

The controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been rejected by all three committees that advise the European Parliament's International Trade Committee (ITC). The Civil Liberties Committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of rejecting the agreement which aims to protect intellectual property rights but has been criticized for having been decided in secret and for infringing on basic rights and freedom (36 votes to one but with 21 abstentions). Votes in the Industry Committee and Legal Affairs Committee were closer (31 to 25, and 12 to 10 respectively). The Committees' decisions are not binding on the ITC which will make its determination on 21 June. It will then pass to the full European Parliament. The agreement is not expected to pass.

Google was cleared of infringing Java software patents within its Android operating system by a federal jury. The case was brought against Google by Java owner Oracle and had threatened to shake up the smartphone market, in which Android-running handsets are number one. By dismissing the patent infringement claims, Google now only faces a charge of copyright infringement. Oracle is free to appeal but has not yet said whether it will.