29 Rights Protection Mechanisms

Prototypical answer:

The Registry shall implement and adhere to any Rights Protection Mechanisms (RPMs) that may be mandated by ICANN from time to time. Additional RPMs as further described below may also be developed and implemented by The Registry to discourage and prevent abusive domain name registrations. All RPMs mandated by ICANN and independently developed by The Registry will be included in the The Registry registry-registrar agreement.

Compliance with RPM mandated by ICANN
Trademark Clearinghouse
The Registry will use Trademark Clearinghouse to support its pre-launch or initial launch period rights protection mechanism (RPMs). These RPMs, at minimum, will consist of a Trademark Claim service and a Sunrise process.

The Registry agrees to adhere to the Clause 6 ‘Mandatory Rights Protection Mechanisms’ and Clause 7 ‘Protection for Marks in Clearinghouse’ of the Trademark Clearinghouse attachment to the DAG.

The Registry shall also take reference to the Trademark Notice as attached in the same document.

The Registry has allocated budget as cost of sales to pay Trademark Clearinghouse for the Trademark Claims and Sunrise service.

Uniform Rapid Suspension System (“URS”)
The Registry will cooperate with ICANN for the implementation of URS, shall the policies and procedures are finalized. The involvement of the registry for the scope of URS shall include the followings:
• Upon completion of the Administrative Review, the URS Provider will immediately notify the registry (via email) (“Notice of Compliant”) after the Compliant has deemed compliant with the filing requirements. Within 24 hours of receipt of the Notice of Complaint from the URS Provider, the registry shall “lock” the domain name, meaning the registry shall restrict all changes to the registration data, including transfer and deletion of the domain names, but the name will continue to resolve. The registry will notify the URS provider immediately upon locking the domain name (“Notice of Lock”).
• If after the Examination in Default case, the Examiner rules in favor of the Registrant, the URS provider shall notify the registry. Upon receiving the official notice from the URS provider, the registry will unblock the name and return full control of the domain name registration to the Registrant.
• If the Determination is in favor of the Complainant, upon receiving the official decision from the URS provider, the registry will suspend the domain name, which shall remain suspended for the balance of the registration period and would not resolve to the original web site. The nameservers shall be re-directed to an informational web page provided by the USR Provider.
• The Registry will incorporate URS into the Registration policies, as a takedown measures and procedures to minimize abusive registration.

Trademark Post-Delegation Dispute Resolution Procedure (Trademark PDDRP)
As part of the intended Registry Agreement, The Registry agrees to participate in all post delegation procedures and be bound by the resulting Determinations.

Registry Restriction Dispute Resolution Procedure (RRDRP)
The TLD is a generic use TLD and there is no intention to set out any registration restriction in the Registry Agreement. At such, it is unclear if the RRDRP would apply with The Registry.

Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP)
The Registry will adopt UDRP within the Registration Agreement and also be adopted by the registrars. Essentially, the UDRP is a policy between a registrar and its customer and is included in registration agreements for all ICANN-accredited registrars.

Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP)
The Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy (TDRP) applies to transactions in which a domain-name holder transfers or attempts to transfer a domain name to a new registrar. The TDRP concerns registrar disputes under the Inter-Registrar Transfer Policy.

The Registry will support the TDRP, and the proceedings may be filed with an independent dispute resolution provider (i.e. HKIRC).

Additional Measures Specific to Rights Protection
Sunrise Program for Registrant Pre-Verification
The Registry intends to adopt a Sunrise Program that has the following details:
RPMs
- Sunrise with three phases:
Phase 1: Sunrise for Governments
Phase 2: Sunrise for registered trade marks
Phase 3: Sunrise for company names

- Schedule ⁄ Length of Sunrise
Phase 1: 4 weeks
Phase 2: 4 weeks
Phase 3: 4 weeks
Landrush: 2 weeks
General Availability

- Term of Registration
Sunrise: Two years minimum
Open registration: One year minimum, ten year maximum

- Submission Process
a) Via The Registry accredited registrars.
b) All applications under each Sunrise phase deemed to have arrived at the same time. Electronic auctions held between eligible competing applicants for the same term.
c) English auction format selected with highest bidder winning.
d) Auction will be carried out by outsourcing provider.

- Policies Key term
Comply with terms in Trademark Clearing House

- Character strings
Comply with terms in Trademark Clearing House

- Authentication
All application validated by third party Verification Agent, namely Trademark Clearinghouse appointed by ICANN.

- Amendments & Reconsiderations
a) Verification Agent could request an Amendment Clarification from applicant to correct a typographical mistake. No additional fee charged.
b) Applicant could apply for Reconsideration within seven days of a rejection on the basis of original application or with the provision of further information.

- Supporting information
Proof of eligibility such as Certified copy of trade mark certificate could be requested by Verification Agent. Certified translations of such document into English could also be requested.

- Challenge Mechanism
a) Sunrise Registration Challenge Policy administered by TCH or Hong Kong International Arbitration Center (HKIAC)
b) During domain auction, an invited bidder who disputed the entitlement of a competing bidder must notify The Registry and initiate a dispute prior to the commencement of the auction.
c) HKIAC will administer the Challenge Process for Pioneer Names.

- Disputes
All registrants agree to be bound by the UDRP.

- Dispute provider
Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC)

- Auction
a) Selecting auctions between competing applicants rather than First Come First Served.
b) Pre-validation offer by Validation agent. Pre-validation applications were to assign a code with which permitted instant approval following submission to the registry.

- Pioneer Program
Pioneer Program allocates desirable names to applicant who competed via a provision of Business Plans stating why they deserved a term. Applications accompanied by a deposit, and shall return to winning applicant when they showed receipts for marketing to the value of the deposit.

Sunrise Challenge Policy
The Sunrise Challenge Policy shall be applied only during the sunrise period for the TLD. The challenges under the Sunrise Challenge Policy shall be administered by the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (the “Centre”).

A third-party (the “Challenger”) is required to submit to a mandatory administrative proceeding to seek cancellation, transfer or other changes to a domain name registration, in compliance with the rules that:
• Phase 1: Sunrise for Governments
The corresponding government body objects to the right the applicant claims or fails to acknowledge the application.
•Phase 2: Sunrise for registered trade marks
o The applicant is not the owner, co-owner or assignee of the corresponding registered mark.
o The registered mark was not registered in full force and effect at the time of application of the domain name.
o The applied-for domain names is not a exact match or acceptable match to the textual or word elements of the registered mark which the application of the domain name is based on.
o The registered mark was not registered with a trademark office or trademark registry that corresponds to one of the states or other entities set out in the WIPO Standard ST.3 code.
• Phase 3: Sunrise for company names
o The applied-for domain name does not correspond with the name of the registered entity.
o The applied-for domain name is not an exact match or acceptable match to the textual or word elements of the name of the registered entity which the application of the domain name is based on.

All challenges under this Policy must be submitted to the Centre no later than 120 days after the conclusion of the proposed Sunrise Period. The first challenge to be filed will be granted priority by the Centre if there are multiple challenges for the same domain name. The Centre’s challenge is of an administrative nature and shall be final. The Centre shall not be required to state reasons for its decision.

The fees for the submission of a challenge and its response shall be decided by the Centre prior to the start of the Sunrise Period.

The Registry shall not participate in the administration or conduct of any proceeding before the Centre under this Policy. The Registry shall also not be liable as a result of any decisions rendered by the Centre.

The Centre shall notify the challenger and The Registry of all its decision made under this Policy. If the Centre rules in favor of the challenger and the domain name is to be transferred to the new registrant, the Centre shall provide an authorization code provided by the Registry to transfer the domain name to its preferred registrar and update all the WHOIS information within 30 days that the authorization code is provided.

Abusive Use Policy
The Registry does not tolerate the abusive use of its domain name, which causes security and stability issues for the registry, registrars and the general Internet community. The Registry defines abusive use as the wrong use of power, position or ability and includes but is not limited to the following:
- Illegal or fraudulent actions;
- Any form of spam i.e. email spam, messaging spam etc;
- Phishing which involves the use of bogus websites to obtain personal information;
- Pharming which involves redirecting unknowing users to fraudulent websites to obtain personal information;
- Wilful dissemination of malware;
- Fast-flux hosting which involves the use of DNS to frequently change the location of a website to hide its location or host illegal activities; and
- Botnet command and control.

In regards to abusive use as defined above, The Registry reserves the right to deny, cancel or transfer any registration and lock or place any domain name(s) on hold that it deems necessary in its discretion to protect the integrity and stability of the registry and comply with any applicable laws, government rules, requests of law enforcement, or any dispute resolution process.

Resource Plan
The Registry will have a management staff (i.e. Operations Manager) to spearhead the compliance to ICANN policy matters, and enforce our policies for RPMs are adhered by the Registrars and Registrants. An Administrative Executive will be hired to assist the Operational Manager for the policy matters, shall the workload increase.

During the Sunrise periods, the RPM mechanisms are outsourced to the respective outsourcing partners, namely Trademark Clearing House, URS provider, PDDRP provider, and UDRP providers, Registry backend service provider and legal professionals. Our internal resources are deployed for the following areas:
- Coordination with the providers;
- Liaison with ICANN for the compliance issues;
- Communication with registrars and registrants (where necessary);
- Public relation; and
- Development of new policies.

During the implementation phase, the software developer of Qinetics shall configure the reserve words based on input by the operations manager and ICANN default reserve list. The developer shall perform the configuration of the sunrise, landrush and general availability phases into the SRS between sunrise cooling periods.

Upon the completion of the implementation phase, the Test Engineer of Qinetics will perform rigorous testing procedures to ensure that the system performs according to specifications. Once the testing phase is completed, the configuration shall be hand-over to System Administrator to be deployed to the production environment. A Project Manager is assigned to perform project management and overall control during the implementation phase. The Project Manager will conduct training for the registry users on the sunrise, landrush and general availability handling in the system. The setup shall be completed in stages according to the sunrise process. The configuration in each stage shall be completed in 2 weeks.

The system will be in maintenance mode after the System is deployed. The Operation Manager and the Administrative Executive of The Registry will monitor the registration and WHOIS data daily for any potential trademark issues. They will process the trademark cases and complaints according to policy set by the operations manager. The Operation Team of The Registry shall participate in various workgroups to be updated on any new trademark infringement scenarios and best practices. They shall perform policy review and refinement from time to time so that the rights protection policy can cover as many cases as possible. The application support engineer of Qinetics is tasked to maintain the reserve list according to instructions given by the Operation Team of The Registry.

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