29 Rights Protection Mechanisms

Prototypical answer:

29 Rights Protection Mechanisms

Rights protection mechanisms are a part of abuse prevention mechanisms. As already mentioned in the answer to Evaluation Question #28, abuse prevention and mitigation under .overheidnl will be nearly entirely outsourced to the applicant’s back end provider SIDN, the .NL-registry, being worldwide the 7th largest TLD with almost 5 million domain registrations.

SIDN’s support desk will act as the single abuse point for .overheidnl as is described in detail in the answer provided for Evaluation Question #28. SIDN’s support desk with a total number of 14 staff is experienced in working with right protection mechanisms and supporting rights holders, registrars and registrants when they are confronted with right infringement matters and procedures. SIDN provides these services under the registry back end services contract with .overheidnl.

With regard to rights protection .overheidnl will implement all currently by ICANN prescribed measures by providing a Trademark Claims Service available during the landrush and 60 days after the opening of TLD for registrations, and supporting UDRP and URS. The TLD will however not organize a sunrise. Given the authorized registrant policy a sunrise would not offer any other than the authorized registrant an opportunity to register domain names and would therefore be entirely irrelevant for the protection of third party trademark rights. It may clear that a Dutch governmental organization as the applicant will not register⁄use infringing domain names. Because the TLD recognizes the importance of the protection of trademark holders in the current expansion, the TLD is entirely prepared to adopt that Trademark Claims Service and the other RPM’s although it may be clear that these will never be used with regard to this TLD.

.overheidnl will evidently adhere to any other or any amended rights protection mechanisms (RPMs) that may be mandated by ICANN. .overheidnl will, except for the sunrise, include all ICANN mandated and independently developed RPMs in the registry registrar agreement. .overheidnl will not mandate any rights holder to use any other trademark information, aggregation, notification or validation service in addition to or instead of the Trademark Clearinghouse.

.overheidnl will further comply with the dispute resolution mechanisms (PDDRP and RRDRP) and implement and adhere to any remedies ICANN imposes following a determination by a panel under the DRPs and will accept to be bound by such determinations.

In following section, the different measures and the role of the registry operator are described in more detail.

29.1 Trademark Claims Service

During the projected landrush period and during the first 60 days after the start of the availability of the shared registry system for general registrations, the .overheidnl will offer a Trademark Claims Service in cooperation with the Trademark Clearinghouse and its registrars according to the then available procedures. During this period all requested registrations will be checked by .overheidnl for Identical Matches (conform the definition in the current Trademark Clearinghouse document) with trademarks registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse. If such a match is detected .overheidnl will send a Trademark Claims Notice in Dutch and English via its sponsoring registrar to the prospective registrant to inform him about the match and make sure that by still registering the name the registrant warrants the reception of the notice, that he has understood it and that, to the best of his knowledge, the registration or use of the domain will not infringe on the specific trademark rights.

Under the Registry Registrar Agreement the registrar will be obliged to promptly notify the trademark holder via the registrar’s interface with the Trademark Clearinghouse after the registration is effectuated.

29.2 Unified Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)

.overheidnl supports the UDRP procedure, which is one of the formal consensus policies, and will oblige registrars via the Registry Registrar Agreement to support it and to have the registrants accept the applicability of the UDPR via the Registry Registrant Agreement.

29.3 Uniform Rapid Suspension

The support organization for the .overheidnl, which will be made available through SIDN as the backend service provider, will handle URS notices received from the URS providers in line with the final URS rules. As the current draft URS Rules require the registry to lock the domain within 24 hours after the reception of the notice, the registry will implement a procedure to make sure that these notices are timely signaled, the domains in question are locked via the SRS and the URS Provider receives a Notice of Lock. The registry will then await further notices from the URS Provider and act accordingly by or:
a. immediately unlocking the domain; or
b. suspending the domain, redirecting the name servers for the domain to the webpage provided by the URS Provider and publish in the Whois that the domain name will not be able to be transferred, deleted or modified for the life of the registration.

The registry will do the same if it receives notice of the outcome of an appeal.

The registry will not renew the registration of a, because of the outcome of a URS procedure suspended, domain name except if it receives a request from the registrar for the domain name to renew the domain for one year upon a request by the successful complainant. Please note that the actual and detailed implementation will depend on the final URS rules.

29.4 Domjur.nl

SIDN publishes since 2001 legal rulings and articles about court and ADR cases involving domain names in The Netherlands (many on the basis of rights infringement claims) on the website http:⁄⁄www.domjur.nl. The information on this site (in Dutch only) gives a nearly complete overview of all domain name related cases in the Netherlands since the upcoming of the internet and is aimed primarily at lawyers, but there is also information that may be of interest to ‘lay’ visitors.

Summaries of all relevant rulings are provided on the website. Rulings with particular legal significance are also annotated by leading internet lawyers. The DomJur website is maintained jointly by SIDN and the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT) of Tilburg University.

DomJur will of course also publish any domain name cases that might arise under .overheidnl and will be a good source for (lawyers of) rights holders to learn about the whereabouts of domain name disputes.

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