Another day and another applicant is complaining a new gTLD Dispute Resolution panels.
Today its Demand Media, Inc, (DMD) complaining to Cherine Chalaby, Chair of ICANN New gTLD Program Committee over the International Center for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) on the objections filed by VeriSign against the three applicants for .CAM.In two of the cases a ICDR panel rejected the application of Verisign finding that .cam was not confusingly similar to .com but in the third case involving Demand Media, Inc. application for .Cam the panel upheld Verisign objection.
“We have previously written ICANN staff regarding this issue but feel this matter needs to be brought to the NGPC’s full attention.
“On behalf of United TLD Holdco, Ltd., one of three applicants for the .CAM new gTLD, I write to ask the New gTLD Program Committee (NGPC) that it urgently rectify the disparate decisions issued by the ICDR.
On August 13th, the ICDR issued a decision finding that AC Webconnecting’s application for .CAM and VeriSign’s .COM gTLD were not confusingly similar. On the same day, the ICDR issued a second decision finding that dotAgency’s .CAM application was also not confusingly similar to .COM. Because of these decisions, these two applications are permitted to move forward in the new gTLD program and can participate in the ICANN auction process to resolve the string contention.
VeriSign’s objection against United TLD’s application for .CAM, however, had a different result despite the fact that the general principles and standards that applied in the case were exactly the same. The result of this adverse judgment means that United TLD’s application, unlike the other two applications, cannot proceed further in the process and participate as part of a string contention set.
In contrast to other applicants who have lost string confusion objections and have complained about inconsistent panel results related to singular and plurals (for example .CAR and .CARS were not found to be similar but .TOUR and .TOURS were found to be confusingly similar), we are NOT complaining about inconsistent results.
Our case and circumstances are different and unique from these others.
We acknowledge that some individuals may differ on whether .CAM and .COM are confusingly similar. However, NONE can differ on whether .CAM and .CAM are the same exact identical string and therefore must be treated equally in terms of a decision on whether they are similar to .COM.
ICANN’s staff had initially suggested that we seek reconsideration of the ICDR’s determination by the Board Governance Committee (BGC) or the Office of Ombudsman but we believe those options are inapplicable to the circumstances in this case as the problem we face does not involve either an ICANN action or misapplication of ICANN policy.…
