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Trademark Claims Recommendation #2

Trademark Claims Recommendation #2

Owned by Ariel Liang
Mar 03, 2020


Trademark Claims Recommendation #2

The Working Group recommends that delivery of the Trademark Claims Notice be both in English as well as the language of the registration agreement. In this regard, the Working Group recommends: 

  • Changing the relevant language in the current Trademark Clearinghouse Rights Protection Mechanism Requirements[1] on this topic (Section 3.3.1.2) to “...registrars MUST provide the Claims Notice in English and in the language of the registration agreement.”
  • The Claims Notice should include a link to a webpage on the ICANN org website containing translations of the Claims Notice in all six UN languages.


Context:

The Working Group generally agreed that the current Trademark Clearinghouse Rights Protection Mechanism Requirements on translations of the Claims Notice does not seem effective in informing domain name applicants of the scope and limitation of trademark holders’ rights. 


The current requirement (Section 3.3.1.2) states: “The Claims Notice MUST be provided by the registrar to the potential domain name registrant in English and SHOULD be provided by the registrar to the potential domain name registrant in the language of the registration agreement” (bold for emphasis). 


The Working Group noted that some Registrars do not translate the Claims into all of the languages that they use when conducting business with new gTLD registrants. As the Claims Notice has inadequacies and shortcomings in the English language in which it was initially drafted, it is implied that it would unlikely be more comprehensible among recipients who do not speak English or are not native speakers. 


[1] http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/trademark-clearinghouse/rpm-requirements-30sep13-en.pdf