Re: [Ianaplan] Fwd: [CWG-Stewardship] ICG request concerning IANA trademark and iana.org domain name

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Friday, June 19, 2015 17:07 +0000 John Levine
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> ICANN owns the IANA trademark???
> 
> They registered the logo with the lower case script in 2002
> with a claimed priority dave of Dec 1997, and the word IANA in
> 2008, with a claimed priority date of Feb 1996.

A bit more history for those who care.   The whole collection of
things, including the IANA name (formally or informally), the
domain name admin contact (aka "owner") and delegation, and, at
least nominally, the IANA-controlled/operated root server as
part (or "most") of the handoff from USC-ISI to ICANN (after the
US Government asserted they owned all of those things all along
and, whatever USC might have thought of that, they didn't cry
out in public pain).   I suppose one might quibble about whether
they should have registered the trademarks but, given the mess
that we/ISOC has been through over "Internet" and the active
(and conceivably deliberate) confusion over "IAB" that persisted
for some years, it would probably have been irresponsible for
someone to have not done so and they were probably the only ones
who could have done it.

It may also be relevant that, according to ICANN's web pages,
the Affirmation of Commitments was announced 2009-09-30.  That
would put both the 2002 and 2008 registrations in the period
when ICANN was still operating under a contract with NITA (not
just holding a contract from NTIA for IANA services and
operation as they do now and we are trying to transition out
of).  IANAL, much less a trademarks one, but common sense
suggests that implies that either ICANN owned the name (in its
various forms) and could reasonably trademark it or the US
Government did and ICANN has to be presumed to have made the
applications with NTIA permission.

>...

I don't think any of this should come as a surprise to anyone
who has been following ICANN since the initial transition.   It
might for those who have, IMO wisely, spent their time on
technical issues for the good of the Internet instead of
focusing on ICANN, the names market, etc.

> The license in the CWG proposal is reasonable under the
> circumstances except perhaps for the exclusive part.
> Personally, I don't think it's worth making a lot of stink
> about the trademark or domain name.  What matters is where the
> root servers get their zones, the RIRs their IPs and ASNs, and
> the nerds their parameters, not what the name or logo on the
> web site is.

That takes us back to this WG's earlier conclusion that neither
the domain name nor any associated trademarks were particularly
important to us.

    john