Question: Do you think the current UDRP is flawed or not? People say that trademark holders can shut down the *sucks.com sites criticizing them under the UDRP. please check http://members.icann.org/qa/pub/topics/33.html http://members.icann.org/qa/pub/topics/8.html and answer.

Nominee Replies

Sureswaran Ramadass - posted on 2000-09-30 05:15:34 UDRP is not perfect. Again, the best judgement is one that is looked at case by case. My stand is to uphold the rights of the Netizens and not that or large corporations. Lulin Gao - posted on 2000-09-27 21:23:24 As the proverb goes: nothing is perfect. I understand the concerns expressed by certain commentators that UDRP has effectively created a dispute resolution mechanism independent of court system of sovereign states and the credibility of the decisions made under the mechanism might be called into question. But these concerns would be minimized if not removed since the procedure under UDRP is confined in its scope to abusive registration (or cybersquatting) and parties to the dispute are not denied access to court litigation at all times. One of the most important benefits of the procedure under UDRP is the expeditiousness and cost-efficiency, which is intended to be commensurate with the speed with which damage can be done and the cost of obtaining an infringing domain name. This benefit can not be obtained in many of the existing court litigation systems. Please also note that the procedure under UDRP does not concern itself with the adjudication of disputes involving conflicting interests between good faith users with legitimate rights and interests other than trademark rights. This leaves to the decision by competent courts or arbitral tribunals. In sum, my view is that UDRP is a good starting point. I would be very happy to work with the Internet community and act as channel to voice our concerns and put forth our joint efforts in an open, constructive and consensus-based environment to make further improvement in UDRP. Masanobu Katoh - posted on 2000-09-26 14:35:30 Last year, ICANN and the accredited registrars for the .com, .net, and .org spaces approved the Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). Since then, the UDRP has been involved in the resolution of over 1000 disputes. The UDRP system was created after careful study and analysis. The goal is to have a good, fair, inexpensive, and timely process to resolve disputes. I think we have a good model here. But the system is just beginning to operate and it is too early to judge whether or not there is a danger of bias or potential abuse. Of course, we should monitor the system carefully. Johannes Chiang - posted on 2000-09-21 01:25:21 As a candidate for the ICANN director, I think I should not criticize the results of the cases rigidly, especially when I didn't have enough study on these cases. Well, I really don't know how many of the *sucks.com sites have been shut down or disabled. Secondly, I agree with what Prof. L. Lessig said: Trademark law is law, no one elected ICANN to make law! Thirdly, it's not always the law alone to decide the results. Sometimes, it depends on the arbitration process. If I were the person who had to make the decision, my position would be that the holders of the *sucks.com must be responsible for the -sucks and the *.com sites could only be responsible for the *.