A "Roundtable Discussion on Small Business Impact of Famous Trademark Protection" was held today by the U.S. Small Business Administration, in person in Washington, D.C. and by teleconference. Not a single proposal for the protection of small businesses from the curent proposals to give famous names first choice in domain name registration was entertained, and the few comments even remotely bearing on the subject of the roundtable were ignored by the persons representing the ICANN Working Groups dealing with famous names, trademarks, and intellectual property, who were allowed by the SBA roundtable organizers to dominate and manipulate the discussion. Either through incompetence or because it has been co-opted into ICANN, the SBA no longer seems to be a forum for increasing the voice of small businesses and independent domain name holders in this process. ============================================================ Michael Sondow I.C.I.I.U. http://www.iciiu.org Tel. (718)846-7482 Fax: (603)754-8927 ============================================================
