Re: [Ianaplan] control and negotiation (was Re: draft-ietf-ianaplan-icg-response-02 working group last call)

[Bernard Aboba <[e-mail]>]

On Nov 9, 2014, at 10:31 AM, Peterson, Jon <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> Explaining our past and present use of the IANA to the ICG, and then
> empowering the IAOC to negotiate something that preserves "backward
> compatibility" in the event of a transition (as I gather Eliot's language
> soon will), should get us a certain way down this path. A license alone
> can't cover some contingencies: in some sorts of transitions, licenses
> might end up in flux. But if the IAOC believes securing some further
> license would help preserve "backward compatibility" here, that'd be fine
> with me. Still, if worst comes to worst, we're going to have other
> remedies at our disposal than the courts.

[BA] A good portion of the complexity here is we are talking about a domain name and trademark that is relevant to multiple communities. If instead the IETF were to obtain a domain name only relevant to protocol parameters that could not be confused with the IANA trademark, then much of the complexity vanishes - we only need arrange for iana.org to point to that new domain and the IETF Trust would only need to be concerned with domain names and marks which would relate to IETF and IETF alone.  If the new mark would only need to be registered in a few countries the registration could be cost effective - and if the name were generic enough that it could not be trademarked easily then we might be able to avoid much or all of the registration cost.