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Staff Research, Initial Legal Consultation, and Briefing Papers

Staff Research, Initial Legal Consultation, and Briefing Papers

Owned by Mary Wong
Last updated: Nov 29, 2016

 

International Law Research

DRAFT - Final Legal Opinion on Sovereign Immunity for IGOs - 22 April 2016

Staff Briefing Note on Sovereign Immunity for IGOs - 12 Mar 2015

NAFO Canada Supreme Court decision

Questions sent to Hans Corell - 4 March 2015

2015-03-06 Corell Note to ICANN - 6 March 2015

 

Trademark Research

Policy staff conducted preliminary searches in several freely-accessible online databases provided by various national trademark offices. This was not a comprehensive search of all possible trademark protections obtained by all IGOs on the GAC List; rather, the intent was to obtain an initial sense of the nature and potential scope of certain national trademark protections for a selected number of IGOs from the GAC List.

The IGOs whose names and acronyms were searched for represent a sampling of IGOs across different sectors and geographies. They were selected from the GAC List (provided to ICANN) and are all organizations who have also submitted the requisite Article 6ter notifications for protection under the Paris Convention. 

(NOTE: For the United Nations, protection seems to be limited to its name and not acronym; for UNICEF, protection seems to be for its acronym rather than its name.)

The national trademark databases were selected based on original research performed by ICANN's General Counsel for the prior IGO-INGO PDP Working Group, which indicated that of the jurisdictions it had surveyed, several did protect IGOs (notified pursuant to Article 6ter of the Paris Convention) via some specific mechanism in their national laws, such as assigning these IGO names and acronyms to specific serial numbers that would ensure that they will show up in a trademark search by third parties.