STI

Specific Trademark Issues (STI, also Special Trademark Issues) is a resolution adopted by the Generic Names Support Organization (GNSO) on 28 October 2009. It was originally proposed by the GNSO when ICANN sent a letter to the GNSO requesting to review the policy implications of specific trademark protection mechanisms for the sake of the proposed new gTLD Program.

STI-DT

The GNSO created the STI-DT for the task of analyzing the specific rights protection mechanisms, which needed to be included in the Draft Application Guidebook or DAG.. It consisted of the following representatives:

• Representatives from each Stakeholder Group
• Nominating Committee Appointees
• GAC

Members consisted mostly of attorneys and others with experience in trademark law and the Internet.

Principles

The STI works on the following principles:

1. Unanimous consensus
2. Rough consensus: This is a situation wherein there is a small minority that disagrees about a topic but majority agree
3. Strong support: This means that there is a large number of opposition
4. No consensus

Work

The STI after its creation was assigned a huge task which included processing and addressing trademark issues as well as providing solutions to the benefit of both the non-commercial users as well as those of the trademark owners and the DNS community as a whole.

The STI published a report in which it provided its vital recommendations regarding the creation of a Trademark Clearinghouse and Uniform Rapid Suspension procedure. It was mostly created to protect the trademarks in the new gTLD program.