Hi Ali and Gace,

Registry Africa developed its own Mark Validation System in addition to the TMCH. You may read more here http://www.africainonespace.org/content.php?tag=43&title=Rights+Protection

Regards

On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 1:27 PM, Ali Hussein via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

Grace

It's very relevant and I think .Africa is implementing this during the Sunrise Period. Maybe @Alice Munyua can give us more information?

By the way even KeNIC is implementing a Sunrise Period in the delegation of the second level domains (.ke) which I understand kicked off last weekend?

@KeNIC can you maybe educate us on this?

Regards
Ali Hussein
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Hussein & Associates

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On Fri, Jul 28, 2017 at 7:06 AM, Grace Mutung'u via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
I wonder how much.africa is implementing the trade mark clearing house and whether this debate is relevant for Africa.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
EFF is now encouraging registrants to avoid domains that are subject to the TMCH. From https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/how-threats-against-domain-names-used-censor-content:

"Today EFF and Public Knowledge are releasing a whitepaper titled Which Internet registries offer the best protection for domain owners? ...

To draw one example of out of our whitepaper, if you're running a website to criticize an established brand and you use that brand as part of your domain name, it may be wise to avoid registering it in a top-level domain that offers special rights and procedures to brand owners, that could result in your domain name being wrongly taken away or could embroil you in dispute settlement proceedings.

This probably means you'll want to think twice about registering in any of the newer global top-level domains (gTLDs), which provide brand owners access to a privately-run Trademark Clearinghouse that gives them veto powers that go far beyond those they would receive under the trademark law of the United States or those of most other countries.

For example, under U.S. trademark law, if a trademark applicant sought to register an ordinary word such as smart, forex, hotel, one, love, cloud, nyc, london, abc, or luxury, they would have to specify the category of goods or services they provide, and protection for the mark might only be extended to its use in a logo, rather than as a plain word. Yet each of the plain words above has been registered in the Trademark Clearinghouse, to prevent them being used in any of the new gTLDs without triggering a warning to prospective registrants about possible infringement.

This applies regardless of whether the planned usage covers the same category of goods or services as the original trademark—indeed there isn't even any way for the registrant to find out what that category was, or even which country accepted the mark for registration, because the contents of the Trademark Clearinghouse database are secret. And since 94% of prospective registrants abandon their attempted registration of a domain after receiving a trademark warning, this has a drastic chilling effect on speech.

EFF is currently participating in an ICANN working group fighting to ensure that brand owners' veto rights aren't extended even further (for example to catch domains that include typos of brand names), and to prevent these outrageous rules being applied to older gTLDs such as .com, .net, and .org. But for now, you can minimize your exposure to trademark bullying by avoiding registering your website in one of the new domains that is subject to these unfair policies. Our whitepaper explains what to look for."
-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Global Policy Analyst
Electronic Frontier Foundation
https://eff.org
jmalcolm@eff.org

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:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::

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