Thank you for the opportunity to reply to WIPO2RFC-1. Timetable Document WIPO/OLOA/EC/RFC1 is dated July 10. However, it arrived at our offices August 11 attached to a WIPO letter dated August 4. Providing 2 working days to comment is clearly insufficient. AIM may come back to WIPO outside of the proposed timetable. The following are therefore AIM's preliminary comments. 1. The timetable needs review and adjusting as it has slipped already. 2. In general the questions outlined seem to be the right ones. However, what is missing is context to the domain name system (DNS). With the expansion of the DNS now certain, our thinking needs to be in the post dot com world. What will be important therefore is the relationship of the name to the type of TLD that it is in. TLDs may be open and generic such as dot com or closed classifications. We need to distinguish between: - bad faith registration - good faith registration but where there is likelihood of confusion - good faith registration where there is little likelihood of confusion. To take an example using an international intergovernmental organisation. who.org for any other than the World Health Organisation would cause confusion who.com is a site for a personalities magazine which seems fair who.culttv as a site for the cult BBC TV series Dr.WHO seems fair who.pop for the 20th century pop group The Who seems fair too. An example using a geographical indication: parma.com for the city of Parma would seem fair. Actually the site is owned by public agency risk management association which seems fair too. parma.food could be reserved for Parma ham but what of Parma violets? parma.meat may have a case for being reserved for Parma ham. Context is everything and needs to be part of the WIPO process. Philip Sheppard
AIM - European Brands Association
9 av. des Gaulois B-1040 Brussels
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