Dispute resolution

[thomst@netcom.com (Thom Stark)]

Quoting directly from the document:

> IAHC seeks a policy in which registrars are involved as little as
> possible in trademark disputes.  It is recognized that there is a
> substantial interest in minimizing litigation, including litigation
> against registries, and in encouraging resolution of legitimate
> disputes prior to the time that significant investment is made in a
> domain name. In order that domain name applicants/holders may be held
> appropriately accountable for any infringement of legal rights,
> sufficient contact and context information should be available, and
> there should be sufficient public notice before a domain name is
> assigned, to facilitate dispute resolution.

I've been staying out of this discussion, because I'm still researching
the issues.  Having said that, it seems to me that, in the interests of
both efficiency and fairness, a better solution would be to require all
SLD registrants to agree to enter into legally-binding arbitration with
any disputant of their right to use of the SLD, with the costs of
arbitration being assigned by the arbitor, based on his/her judgement
of the relative merits of the two parties' claims.

This would permit the immediate use of a SLD upon registration, would
impose no arbitrarily-chosen limit on how long a disputant would have
to discover a possible infringement and would impose the greatest cost
burden on the party with the weakest case.  (I'd expect that, should
the arbitor determine that a disuptant, for instance, had a meritless
case, he/she would assign the entire arbitration cost to that party.)

It would also allow multiple simultaneous or consecutive challenges to
an SLD-holders use without prejudging the merits of one challenge
based on the merits of another.  And it would keep the registry out of
the battle altogether.

In essence, my proposal is:  "Agree to binding arbitration or no SLD
will be issued."  This applies equally to challengers as well as first
registrants.

There are many professional dispute resolution firms worldwide, so 
there would be no need for the registrars to set up any new bodies to
perform this service (and, in fact, I suspect that registrars would be
reluctant to provide anything more specific than a list of qualified
possible arbiters for fear of appearing to force a specific arbiter on
the contending parties).  The disputants would be free to choose any
mutually-agreeable arbiter.

Just my 1/50th of a dollar..

Regards,

Thom Stark

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