CONFERENCE CALL
information. Maron Galama, a member of ECTA’s professional affairs and designs committees, said access to files was “very open” at OHIM.
Moving on to domain names, session host Mueller asked whether the Internet had become “wild” with counterfeiting and piracy. Andrew Mills, chair of ECTA’s Internet committee, told a fictional story about a Chinese national called ‘Navy’ to illustrate the problems facing IP owners online. ‘Navy’ used country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs) and internationalised domain names, ie, those in non-Latin scripts, to operate illegal businesses, infringing brands as he went. Te message was clear: hundreds of ccTLDs are already being used to facilitate IP infringement. “Tis should be a word of warning for brands in light of the new generic TLDs (gTLDs),” Mills said.
Expanding on this topic, the aſternoon’s Special Report on Internet Issues examined the gTLD programme, under which businesses have applied for domains such as .app and .google. Lorna Gradden, operations director at domain registrar Com Laude, updated the audience on the programme’s latest developments. She explained that applications for 1,930 gTLDs had been received by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which marshals the domain name space and manages the gTLD programme.
www.worldipreview.com
“GRADDEN ADVISED COMPANIES THAT HAVE NOT APPLIED TO ICANN TO ADOPT A WIDE-RANGING APPROACH TO ENSURE NO-ONE REGISTERS THEIR TRADEMARK AS A NEW GTLD.”
Gradden advised companies that have not applied to ICANN to adopt a wide-ranging approach to ensure no-one registers their trademark as a new gTLD. “Search the list and see if there any conflicts; file a legal rights objection; consider negotiating and maybe buy them out; file a public comment; even lobby governments and ask them to file an early warning,” she said. Her last piece of advice was simple: get involved with ICANN.
Te final day of the conference began with the Special Report on OHIM New Competencies and Practices. OHIM’s president Antonio Campinos was interviewed by Olivier Vrins, a member of ECTA’s anti-counterfeiting committee. Focusing on class headings, Campinos said convergence was a pressing issue at OHIM. “We want an EU-wide agreement: it’s very ambitious, but we like to be ambitious,” he said.
Te interview turned to the European Observatory on Counterfeiting and Piracy, the work of which is overseen by OHIM. Te observatory was created by the EC earlier this year and is bringing together specialists from the private and public sectors to support law enforcement’s efforts to tackle IP infringement. Campinos said the observatory’s priority should be to define to what extent infringement affects and damages GDP. “We need a similar figure to that of the US Patent and Trademark Office, which shows that IP-intensive industries contribute to 34 percent of GDP,” he said.
Jason Burrati, an IP consultant in the US, encouraged OHIM to “get back to basics” by
tackling counterfeiting and piracy. “We
(IP holders) are looking at OHIM and the observatory for information and statistics on the internal market, best-practice strategies and public awareness,” he said.
World Intellectual Property Review July/August 2012 15
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