| New Documents |
ICANN: Report
on New TLD Applications, 11/10 (HTML, ICANN).
MW:
Complaint
against WorldCom, 11/7 (HTML, MW).
MW:
Complaint
against PSINet, 11/3 (HTML, MW).
MW:
Complaint
against Clarus, 10/30 (HTML, MW).
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| New and Updated Sections |
Calendar.
News
from Around the Web.
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| Quote of the Day |
"The technical team concluded that dotLAW's proposed technical
plan did not support the proposed business plan in several areas,
including lack of experience in running a registry of a comparable
size and an inadequate fault tolerance design. The technical team
was also concerned that the proposed TLD would operate at a scale of
100 times that of the applicant's existing experience and that its
plan did not appear sufficient to handle this increase. The
technical team was further concerned with the security design of the
proposed system. The business/financial team concluded that dotLAW's
application was incomplete and weak ..."
ICANN's Report on TLD Applications, regarding dotLAW's
application for a .law TLD.
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| News Briefs |
11/10. U.S. District Court (SDFl)
Judge Donald Middlebrooks released his opinion in the Broward
County cable access case in which he held the county
ordinance unconstitutional. On July 13, 1999, Broward County adopted
an ordinance
that required Comcast to provide competing ISPs access to its
broadband cable Internet access facilities. On July 20, 1999 Comcast filed its original
complaint against Broward County
alleging many legal theories, including, that the ordinance violates
the Communications Act of 1934, that it violates Comcast's First
Amendment rights, that it impairs interstate commerce, that it
constitutes an unlawful taking, that it is an unlawful impairment of
contract, and that it violates due process rights.
11/10. ICANN
released a series of reports just prior to its annual meeting on
Nov. 13-16 in Marina Del Ray, California. See, meeting agenda. Its lengthy
Report on New TLD
Applications recommended creating a limited number of new top
level domains (TLDs) from the general purpose TLD applications.
The report stated that the following "merited further
review": .web, .biz, .ebiz, .home, .info, .site, .sport, .surf,
.cash, .global, and .secure. The report also recommended creating a
few personal TLDs from among the following: .nom, .per, .i, .nom,
.name, .nom, .san, and .xing. However, the report also recommended
against creating either a .kids or .xxx TLD. The report stated that
"The concept of a content-restricted TLD presents difficult
definitional issues: Who is a 'kid'? What content is 'appropriate'?
And who decides? Given the international reach of the Internet, the
complexity of these definitional issues is compounded by many
diverse cultures and a variety of community and individual views on
the answers." The report noted too that both pornographers and
the COPA Commission
opposed creation of a .xxx TLD. The report also recommended against
creating restrictive commercial group TLDs (.fin, .travel, .law, and
.pro).
11/10. ICANN
also published reports titled
• Staff
Working Paper on ICANN Cost Recovery Structure for Domain Name
Registries Posted, and
• Audited
Financial Report for Fiscal Year Ending 30 June 2000.
11/10. ICANN
announced that 24 additional companies in Austria, Australia,
Germany, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, U.K., and U.S. have qualified to be
accredited as domain name registrars in the .com, .net and .org
domains. See, release.
11/9. Economic Solutions, Inc. (ESI) filed a complaint in U.S.
District Court (EDMo)
against ICANN
seeking injunctive relief prohibiting it from establishing a .biz or
.ebiz TLD,
or any other TLD that is similar to the country code for Belize, .bz.
ESI has an agreement with the country of Belize to market the .bz
TLD. ICANN had this to say: "ESI's lawsuit is without
merit." See, ICANN
release. See also, undated 1999 Belize
press release (at item 3) and Oct. 18 letter
from ESI to ICANN.
11/10. Australian Prime Minister John Howard opened Lucent's new
facility at Sydney's North Ryde. See, Lucent
release.
11/10. Qualcomm announced
that "the European
Patent Office (EPO) has upheld the validity of another of
QUALCOMM's patents
covering important features of CDMA systems.
The opposition proceedings were initiated by Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd.
of Finland in July 1998. The EPO rejected Nokia's challenge to all
claims and ruled that the patent had novelty and contained the
requisite inventive step." Qualcomm also announced that
"the EPO has terminated two other opposition proceedings in
QUALCOMM's favor, maintaining the patents
in both cases." See, Qualcomm
release.
11/6. Veronica Kayne joined the Washington office of the law
firm of Wilmer, Cutler &
Pickering as a partner. She was previously Assistant Director of
the FTC's
Bureau of Competition, Anticompetitive Practices Division. She will
work on antitrust, intellectual property, and e-commerce matters.
See, WCP
release [PDF]. She was an antitrust attorney in the DC office of
King and Spalding before going
to the FTC in June of 1996.
11/7. Two individuals filed a complaint
in U.S. District Court (SDMiss)
against WorldCom, CEO Bernie
Ebbers, and CFO Scott Sullivan, alleging violation of federal
securities laws. The plaintiffs, who seeks class action status, are
represented by several law firms, including Milberg Weiss. Count one alleges
violation of §10b
of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and Rule 10b5 thereunder,
for making allegedly false statements about the financial status of
WorldCom. Count two of the complaint alleges violation of §20a
of the Act by Ebbers and Sullivan. Milberg Weiss is a law firm that
specializes in bringing class action securities suits against
technology companies with volatile stock prices. The Stanford Securities Class
Action Clearinghouse reports that 168 securities class action
suits have been brought in federal court so far this year.
11/3. Three individuals filed a complaint in
U.S. District Court (EDVa) against PSINet,
CEO William
Schrader, COO Harold Willis, and CFO Larry Hyatt, alleging
violation of federal securities laws. The plaintiffs, who seeks
class action status, are represented by several law firms, including
Milberg Weiss. Count one
alleges violation of §10b of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
and Rule 10b5 thereunder, for making allegedly false statements
about the financial status of PSINet. Count two of the complaint
alleges violation of §20a of the Act by Schrader, Willis, and
Hyatt. PSINet provides corporate Internet access, private IP
networks, Internet security, web and database hosting services,
e-commerce solutions, and voice, fax, live audio-video, and other
applications. Cohen Milstein and
other firms are also participating as counsel.
10/30. Milberg Weiss is counsel in yet another securities class
action suit against a tech company. See, complaint
against Clarus filed in
U.S.D.C. (NDGa).
Clarus provides business to business (B2B) e-commerce solutions,
including B2B procurement software.
Editor's Note: This column includes all News Briefs added to
Tech Law Journal since the last Daily E-Mail Alert. The dates
indicate when the event occurred, not the date of posting to Tech
Law Journal. |
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ICANN Annual Meeting
November 13-16. ICANN
will hold its annual meeting in Marina Del Rey, California.
See, schedule. |
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