No Subject

[Dr Victoria Carrington <drvcarrington@echelon.ca>]

May 25, 1999

To:		Esther Dyson, Interim Chairman	
		ICANN Board

From:		Jonathan C. Cohen
		President, Interim IPC

Sent by:	Dr. Victoria Carrington (Shapiro, Cohen), for Jonathan C. Cohen

We acknowledge receipt of the letter addressed to the ICANN Board dated May 21, 1999 from the President of the Patent and Trade-mark Institute of Canada (PTIC).  We were interested to hear the concerns currently raised by Mr. Bloom, particularly as they pertain to the PTIC's participation in the subject IPC formation initiative and the issue of broad representation in the IPC.  We were also somewhat surprised that these concerns were not initially addressed to the other participating organizations of this IPC initiative.

Please note that:

1)	The PTIC was represented at the Toronto meeting on March 18, 1999 by a member of its Trade-marks and Domain Names on the Internet Subcommittee, Mr. Elliott Simcoe;  the PTIC was therefore actively involved in the initial stages of the IPC formation process that resulted in the Toronto document, the draft document which underwent further revision throughout the consultation process and resulted in the IPC application currently before the ICANN Board;

2)	Through its participation in Toronto, the PTIC was aware of and approved plans to continue the IPC formation process through ongoing online consultation, as well the two further international meetings scheduled and held in Wellington, New Zealand (April 12-13) and New York City (May 4-5);

3)	The PTIC did not send an official representative to either Wellington or New York;  it did not, to our knowledge, make any further comment on any of the documents publically posted on the ICANN web site at subsequent stages of the consultation process, nor did it make any request to join the IPC until now, a day before the decision of the ICANN Board regarding accreditation.

This is the first official communication we have heard from the PTIC since the Toronto meeting on March 18, and we are somewhat disappointed to hear such comments from an organization that had every opportunity to participate in the DNSO - IPC formation process, and indeed initially availed itself of this opportunity.   We appreciate the PTIC's qualified support for our initiative, but feel that the related criticism should be taken in light of the fact of that the PTIC has not officially, to our knowledge, maintained its participation in this process.  In any event, I am also a PTIC member.

In the matter of diverse, international representation in the IPC, the Interim IPC Council and Interim Names Council representatives, we respectfully disagree that the focus of the participating organizations is too narrow or not sufficiently geographically diverse.  Although this issue is to be more thoroughly canvassed in our submissions before the Board in Berlin, I would point out here that these organizations represent many thousands of intellectual property right- and stakeholders of all kinds (including, but not limited to industry, business, individual, IP practitioner) worldwide;  for the most part they cannot be accurately described as U.S.-based.  

As Mr. Bloom has conceded, one of the most important aspects of the Interim Council's mandate according to the New York Document is to ensure that participation and representation in the IPC is as broad, diverse and international as possible, and that this is reflected in the final IPC by-laws.  The Interim Council has proceeded according to this mandate to date, and continues to do so as it seeks accreditation by the ICANN Board.  

We look forward to receiving the PTIC's formal application for membership, which will be treated in the same manner as that of any other organization, according to our mandate.  We also look forward to any further comments from the PTIC about any other aspect of the IPC formation process.  

Yours very truly,

Jonathan C. Cohen