Minutes from a board meeting last Thursday show that directors favour implementing a second round “within a relatively short period of time” after the first round, mainly to reduce worries about defensive brand applications.
Some applicants are concerned about making a panicked decision to apply in the first round as they will not know how long they will have to wait before a second round opens.
Icann will open a second round of applications – but only after conducting two reviews for the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). These will cover gTLDs’ effect on root zone stability and the effectiveness of trade mark protection mechanisms.
Icann does not know how long the reviews could take.
To further complicate matters, the minutes of the meeting seem to be wrong: “The GAC recommended trademark study would commence one year after 75 gTLDs are in the root. Given current projections and published timelines, the study will commence in Feb 2013.”
Given that the first gTLDs do not go live until early 2013, this is most likely a mistake and the date should be February 2014.
And under the Affirmation of Commitments agreement with the US Commerce Department, Icann must also review gTLDs within one year of the first strings going live. The government wants Icann to assess the effect on competition, consumer choice and consumer trust, and the effectiveness of the application and evaluation processes.
The board minutes fail to clarify whether a second round depends on this review; rather they state that Icann is committed to such a review.
The date for a second round depends on how quickly Icann evaluates all applications from the first. But adding further to confusion, Thursday’s board minutes appear to make a mistake regarding processing batches of applications.
Icann can only process a maximum of 500 applications at once and has accounted for 2000 applications split into four batches. “If there are four batches, initial evaluations for them would finish in March 2013, and nearly all applications should clear in the second quarter of 2014,” said the minutes.
According to the Applicant Guidebook, evaluating one batch will take five months. The minutes suggest evaluating four batches, which would take 20 months, will be completed by March 2013. John Wilks, associate at DLA Piper in London, said the dates were unclear.
Wilks said he would be surprised if Icann gave a date for a second round before April 12 this year, and it may wait until after evaluating all applications and after complaints procedures have ended.
He added: “The document doesn’t get us a lot further and they (Icann) don’t want to give us a precise date because they have no idea on what the take-up will be. This will determine how thinly their resources will be spread.”
Jean Christophe-Vignes, chief executive at OpenRegistry, said the document was “extremely vague”.
Managing IP is waiting for Icann to respond to its questions.
