Dr Kamil Idris

Director General

World Intellectual Property Organization

PO Box 18

CH-1211 Geneva 20

Switzerland

Dear Dr Idris

In February 2000, the Australian Government convened a working group of officials from interested governments, public authorities and international organizations to discuss the issues raised by cybersquatting.

Having considered registration and dispute resolution practices and policies across the many country code top level domains (ccTLDs), the Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), as listed in the Attachment, note that a number of administrators in ccTLDs may appreciate assistance in developing best practice to address intellectual property concerns in the administration of ccTLD registries. Such assistance could also contribute to the international debat-e about best practice in ccTLD administration.

We note WIPO’s previous work leading to the Final Report of the WIPO Internet domain name process, The Management of Internet Names and Addresses: Intellectual Property Issues. In light of this prior work and expertise, we invite WIPO to develop, for the assistance of the administrators in ccTLDs, voluntary guidelines for the development of practices and policies to curb abusive and bad faith registration of protected names, and to resolve related disputes. To the extent possible, consistency in these and across the domain name system would ensure that no jurisdiction would become a haven for bad faith registrants. As such, the guidelines should take into account procedures established for the generic top level domains, including the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy adopted by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

The development of these guidelines should be expeditious and take full advantage of WIPO’s prior work, while allowing for a process of consultation with WIPO Members and all interested stakeholders. We recognise this work would be undertaken as partial fulfilment of subprogram 03.4, Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property, of the WIPO 2000-2001 Program and Budget, and look forward to its results.

Yours sincerely

RICHARD ALSTON

Minister for Communications,

Information Technology and the Arts

Members of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) who, having considered registration and dispute resolution practices and policies across the many country code top level domains (ccTLDs), note that a number of administrators in ccTLDs may appreciate assistance in developing best practice to address intellectual property concerns in the administration of ccTLD registries, and hence invite WIPO to develop, for the assistance of the administrators in ccTLDs, voluntary guidelines for the development of practices and policies to curb abusive and bad faith registration of protected names, and to resolve related disputes:

Argentina

Australia

Canada

Denmark

European Union

France

United States of America

We understand that the Government of Brazil will also communicate its support for this letter through its diplomatic mission in Geneva.