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

[David Conrad <[e-mail]>]

Miles,

On Nov 4, 2014, at 11:13 AM, Miles Fidelman <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Well, it might be helpful to know that history.  At one point, SRI was IANA,

No. SRI was "The NIC". The IANA was the IANA (before that "the numbers czar"). These are different entities. In many cases, the IANA would often direct The NIC to do stuff.

You might want to read section 2 of https://www.icann.org/en/system/files/files/sac-067-en.pdf.

> now ICANN has registered it.  How did that come to be?

I'd suggest asking some of the folks who were involved in the creation of "NewCo" (which became ICANN).  I have suspicions as to what the original plan was and have heard hearsay about why things are the way they are, but I am not authoritative and do not have evidence so it is inappropriate for me to comment.

> Given that the IANA function was originally being performed at the behest of the USG,

I believe it more accurate to say that the IANA function was performed at the behest of the IETF community and that the folks who performed that function were funded indirectly by the USG. That is, my understanding is that the IANA was _NOT_ a line item in any budget, rather the support costs that paid for Jon's, Joyce's, et al. salary were pulled from the "Tera-node" Project among others.

> and still is, who actually has legitimate claim to the trademark, and how does that play against the domain registration policy?

It would seem the US PTO believe that ICANN has the claim to the trademark. I'll admit not knowing the intricacies of how trademarks impact domain registration policy.

> It strikes me that this is something that should be cleared up as part of this process.

I do not have a strong opinion.

> Arguably, the cleanest way of handling this specific detail would be for the USG (NTIA) to assert ownership of the trademark, reclaim the domain registration from ICANN, and then transfer that registration to some neutral custodian as part of the transition.

IANAL so I won't comment.

Regards,
-drc
(ICANN CTO, but speaking only for myself. Really.)