Subject: [Ianaplan] Who Owns the name IANA?

From: Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 07:04:33 -0400

There has been a spirited discussion on the list as to who owns the data in the IANA protocol parameters registries, which brought us to the important question of who owns iana.org. 

I would like to focus on iana.org, as this is a matter of fact, not opinion.

In the United States, IANA is a registered trademark of ICANN:
http://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4801:v8dn4h.2.7

I did a very fast search and no one has a registration for IANA in the Internet field in Europe.

Recalling ICANN’s own rules, for the most part a trademark owner has first priority on domain registrations. In this case, it looks like ICANN would get first priority on keeping IANA. 

So, as we sit here today, if ICANN decides to “take the ball away from the field,” they can do whatever they want with the domain.

Off the cuff, updating all the RFC’s to point to something other than iana.org is financially a non-starter. It will cost millions in volunteer time and actual RFC Editor dollars to make that kind of change.

In commercial terms, this reality gives ICANN a ton of leverage over the IETF. Now, it would be somewhat suicidal and against ICANN’s purpose to do something silly. Moreover, the separability of the non-DNS protocol parameters from all of the other protocol parameters has been an important factor in many IETF/ICANN negotiations in the past. I would offer that while the NTIA contract is on the table, the IETF has a little leverage over ICANN. Now would be the time for the IETF Trust to get the assignment from ICANN for the IANA trademark. That way the fiction of the IETF being able to move the thing called IANA, as opposed to the function of registering numbers that we conventionally call IANA, would be a reality.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE WORK GROUP: In my opinion, the work group has uncovered a tremendous risk that must be addressed. However, in my opinion the actual decision of the disposition of the literal ownership of IANA is a community matter to be decided by the IAB, with any negotiation to be done by the IAOC. Said in the negative, the disposition of the literal ownership of IANA is not in the scope of the work group. I will leave it to the chairs to decide if there is any more bandwidth to be consumed on this topic on this mail list.

---

From: Miles Fidelman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 08:45:29 -0400

> I did a very fast search and no one has a registration for IANA in the Internet field in Europe.
Ain't facts grand.  Thanks for the research.

Registration and transfer of the trademark seems like an issue that also 
needs to be addressed as part of the transfer.

Miles Fidelman.

-- 
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is.   .... Yogi Berra

---

From: Bernard Aboba <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2014 09:07:56 -0700

Eric Burger said:

"In commercial terms, this reality gives ICANN a ton of leverage over the
IETF. Now, it would be somewhat suicidal and against ICANN’s purpose to do
something silly. Moreover, the separability of the non-DNS protocol
parameters from all of the other protocol parameters has been an important
factor in many IETF/ICANN negotiations in the past. I would offer that
while the NTIA contract is on the table, the IETF has a little leverage
over ICANN. Now would be the time for the IETF Trust to get the assignment
from ICANN for the IANA trademark. That way the fiction of the IETF being
able to move the thing called IANA, as opposed to the function of
registering numbers that we conventionally call IANA, would be a reality."

[BA]  I would agree that transferring the IANA trademark to the IETF Trust
should be considered.  Also, it is possible that there is relevant IPR
beyond copyrights and trademarks.  Perhaps it was only government
boilerplate, but the NTIA-ICANN contract covers not only copyrights but
also other IPR relating to the IANA function including a section relating
to patents.

BTW, I disagree about the leverage of the IETF and other communities.
Since the NTIA-ICANN contract comprehensively deals with rights issues, and
because it requires ICANN to file a transition plan relating to those
rights,  it would be difficult for ICANN to refuse to provide to the
communities the same rights in transition that they committed to providing
under NTIA-ICANN contract and the transition plan they filed.

On Thu, Oct 9, 2014 at 4:04 AM, Eric Burger <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> There has been a spirited discussion on the list as to who owns the data
> in the IANA protocol parameters registries, which brought us to the
> important question of who owns iana.org.
>
> Recalling ICANN’s own rules, for the most part a trademark owner has first
> priority on domain registrations. In this case, it looks like ICANN would
> get first priority on keeping IANA.
>
> So, as we sit here today, if ICANN decides to “take the ball away from the
> field,” they can do whatever they want with the domain.
>
> Off the cuff, updating all the RFC’s to point to something other than
> iana.org is financially a non-starter. It will cost millions in volunteer
> time and actual RFC Editor dollars to make that kind of change.
>
> In commercial terms, this reality gives ICANN a ton of leverage over the
> IETF. Now, it would be somewhat suicidal and against ICANN’s purpose to do
> something silly. Moreover, the separability of the non-DNS protocol
> parameters from all of the other protocol parameters has been an important
> factor in many IETF/ICANN negotiations in the past. I would offer that
> while the NTIA contract is on the table, the IETF has a little leverage
> over ICANN. Now would be the time for the IETF Trust to get the assignment
> from ICANN for the IANA trademark. That way the fiction of the IETF being
> able to move the thing called IANA, as opposed to the function of
> registering numbers that we conventionally call IANA, would be a reality.
>
> WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE WORK GROUP: In my opinion, the work group has
> uncovered a tremendous risk that must be addressed. However, in my opinion
> the actual decision of the disposition of the literal ownership of IANA is
> a community matter to be decided by the IAB, with any negotiation to be
> done by the IAOC. Said in the negative, the disposition of the literal
> ownership of IANA is not in the scope of the work group. I will leave it to
> the chairs to decide if there is any more bandwidth to be consumed on this
> topic on this mail list.
>
> _______________________________________________
> Ianaplan mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ianaplan
>
>