.eu domain registrations start December 7, 2005

If your company or organization does business in Europe, this may be important.

The launch dates for the newly established European .eu top level domain pursuant to European Commission Regulation (EC) No 874/2004 have been announced by EURid, the European Registry of Internet Domain Names. FAQs are available in English (en), German (de), Spanish (es), French (fr) and Italian (it).

Who is eligible for an .eu domain?

Eligible for an .eu domain according to Article 4(2)(b) EC Regulation 733/2002 is any:
"(i) undertaking having its registered office, central administration
or principal place of business within the
[European] Community, or
(ii) organisation established within the [European] Community
without prejudice to the application of national law, or
(iii) natural person resident within the [European] Community...."

This announcement is especially important for established persons, companies or organizations who already have "prior rights" to certain names and want to take advantage of early .eu domain registration in the Phase I and II Sunrise periods, as explained below.

Prior rights entitle early .eu domain registration.

THE PRIOR "SUNRISE-ENTITLED" RIGHTS ARE:

1. trade marks registered in the EU (e.g. Coca-Cola, Sony, Windows, ThinkPad, iPod, Pentium, Ferrari, etc.) Here is an IBM "Legal Information for the ThinkPad" to show some trademark coverage, just in connection with the ThinkPad:
"IBM, the IBM logo, EasyServ, HelpCenter, OS/2, ServicePac, ThinkLight, ThinkPad, ThinkPad Proven, the ThinkPad Proven logo, TrackPoint, Ultrabay, UM Services, Update Connector, WorkPad and the WorkPad Proven logo are trademarks of IBM Corporation in the US and other countries. Bluetooth is a trademark owned by Bluetooth SIG, Inc. and licensed to IBM. Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks and SpeedStep is a trademark of Intel Corporation. Linux is a trademark of Linus Torvalds. Lotus and SmartSuite are registered trademarks of Lotus Development Corporation. Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT and the Microsoft logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others."

2. geographical indications or designations of origin in the EU (e.g. Champagne, Roquefort cheese)

3. unregistered trademarks used in the EU (e.g. LawPundit, EUPundit)

4. trade names in the EU (e.g. "John Doe's Printing Company" [non-existent at Google 23/11/2005], "your company name")

5. business identifiers in the EU (e.g. Ronald McDonald (McDonald's), Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck (Walt Disney Company); WIPO writes on business identifiers:
"Business identifiers” are signs which identify businesses as such, and not the products or services offered by the business, the latter feature constituting a pure trademark function. Signs that may constitute business identifiers are, for example, trade names, business symbols, emblems or logos. Some confusion as regards the functions of marks and business identifiers stems from the fact that, sometimes, the name of a company, i.e., its business identifier, is identical with one of the company’s trademarks."

6. company names in the EU (General Motors, General Electric, Microsoft Corporation, Intel, IBM, Google, Yahoo, etc.)

7. distinctive titles of protected literary or artistic works in the EU (e.g. the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, Star Wars, Indiana Jones)

It is absolutely NOT POSSIBLE to get pre-validation advice about a domain name from the registration validation company (PWC, see below) so do not waste your or anyone else's time trying to get such advice from them. Rather, for Phases I and II below, one must FIRST submit a domain registration claiming the "prior right" to a name together with the documentation required and then let the validation process take its course. See in this regard the EURid pages linked below as well as the Public Policy Rules in EC Regulation 874/2004.

The .EU domain registrations will proceed in three phases:

SUNRISE PERIOD - PHASE I - starts December 7, 2005
SUNRISE PERIOD - PHASE II - starts February 7, 2006
LAND RUSH PERIOD - starts April 7, 2006 - .EU domain registration is open to everyone

Registrations in Phases I and II are for persons or organizations which claim a prior right to a name (e.g. trademarks (trade marks), company names, etc.). Registration during Phases I and II will require documentation of any claim made and that documentation validation will be carried out by PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC).

When can one register an .eu domain? (see detailed instruction here on Launch):

Phase of Registration is Dependent on the Type of Prior Right Which Can be Documented

Phase 1 & 2 - Registered National and Community Trade Marks
Phase 1& 2 - Geographical Indications or Designations of Origin
Phase 2 - Unregistered Trade Marks
Phase 2 - Trade Names
Phase 2 - Business identifiers
Phase 2 - Company Names
Phase 2 - Distinctive Titles of Protected Literary and Artistic Works
Land Rush - Everybody else can register a domain

In the event of conflict between two or more registrants who have legitimate "prior right" claims to a name (Omega Watches and Omega Engineering, Inc. e. g. could in our view both claim the omega.eu domain), the domains will be registered on a first-come, first-served basis.

Please note that EURid is the REGISTRY for .eu domain names but they do NOT do the registering of domains. This is done only by ACCREDITED REGISTRARS, a list of which is HERE.

Technorati Tags:

EURID, EURid, eurid,EU domain, EU domains, EU, Europe, European Union, eu, .eu, .EU, eu domain, eu domains, sunrise period, trade marks, prior rights, trade names, company names, business identifiers, PWC, European Commission.

Crossposted to Law Pundit.
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EU Parliament - Political Groups

The lack of knowledge in Europe and elsewhere about the European Union is immense. Let's take a sample question. Can you name offhand the political groupings in the EU Parliament? Hardly anyone can. There are seven (eight if you count the independents):

Political groups in the list below are based on the European Parliament list of MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] by Member State and political group in the sixth parliamentary term:

1. EPP-ED - Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
(266 members)
These are the conservatives. This is the center-right (centre-right) party. We might compare this group to the Republicans in the USA or the Conservatives in the UK (the Tories) or the CDU/CSU in Germany.

2. PES - Socialist Group in the European Parliament
(201 members)
These are the social democrats. This is the center-left (centre-left) party. This group includes representatives from the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Labour Party in the UK, who define themselves as "democratic socialists". We might compare them to the Democratic Party in the USA.

3. ALDE - Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
(89 members)
In Germany, the liberals (FDP) are the group between the right and the left. This group corresponds to the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK.

4. Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
(42 members)
These are the environmentalists.

5. Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left
(41 members)
This group includes the Communists and the German "Linkspartei" PDS (successor to the former East German political party SED), recently renamed "die Linkspartei" (Left Party).

6. Independence/Democracy Group
(36 members)
This group consists of members who are eurosceptics. They hope to reject the EU Constitution and they oppose all forms of centralization, some even supporting their country's withdrawal from the EU.

7. UEN - Union for Europe of the Nations Group
(27 members)
This is a group which opposes strong federalism in the EU.

8. Non-Attached Members (29 members)

Technorati Tags:

EU Parliament, MEPs, Members of the European Parliament, European Parliament, EU, Europe, European Union, politics, political parties, EPP-ED, PES, ALDE, Labour Party, Conservative Party, Liberal Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, political groups, Green Party, UEN.

Crossposted to LawPundit.
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EU Agricultural Subsidies [CAP] Under Fire

In view of the WTO Doha round of global trade talks and the significant role of European Union (EU) agricultural subsidies [CAP] in those talks, especially the large and controversial subsidies to France, the question must be asked:

Who actually gets the greatly disputed EU farm subsidies which make up ca. 40% of the EU budget?

A November 7, 2005 press release from the NGO Oxfam reports that agricultural subsidies in the European Union show tremendous inequalities of distribution (as already shown for the UK previously, see here and here) . The more land that is owned, the more subsidies the owner is entitled to obtain. The result is that the rich, the biggest farms and large multinational corporations who own large tracts of farmland are the biggest recipients of EU agricultural subsidies. We excerpt the 7 November 2005 Oxfam press release below which was titled "Lid comes off French farm subsidies":

"Europe must face up to the need to reform its Common Agricultural Policy [CAP] following new revelations of inequality from another of its member states this week, said international agency Oxfam today.

French newspaper La Tribune has published figures that show the biggest French farming businesses swallow up the vast majority of its EU agricultural subsidies....

The revelations come as EU Foreign Ministers meet today (Nov 7) in Brussels to discuss the EU budget and trade negotiators from the EU, US, India and Brazil meet in London to try to unblock WTO negotiations.

“CAP reform will be on top of the agenda in Brussels....,” said Celine Charveriat, head of Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign.

France is leading an aggressive defense of the CAP at the WTO. France gets around 9.4 billion Euros from the 44 billion Euro CAP budget....

“The CAP is a gravy train for Europe’s biggest, richest farmers,” she said....“

Oxfam has been instrumental in helping to expose the huge inequalities in farm spending that exist in the UK, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Slovakia and now France....

Crossposted to LawPundit.
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Europa Newsletter of the European Commission Issue 68, November 4, 2005

The Europa Newsletter is issued every two weeks by the European Commission and can be subscribed to here.

The latest issue of the Europa Newsletter, Issue 68, 4 November 2005, reports that:

"On 25 October the European Commission presented a three-year programme to simplify thousands of pages of EU legislation adopted since 1957.....

The Commission proposes to repeal, codify, recast or modify 222 basic legislations – all in all more than 1400 legal acts – in the next three years".

Günter Verheugen, Commission Vice-President, is quoted as saying that this is not deregulation but rather "better regulation".
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Biometric Passports in the USA and the EU - Germany Leads the Way

Biometric Passports in the EU

As reported at the EU Observer, Germany has become the first of the EU Member States to comply with US requirements which mandate biometric passports (or plans for such) from visa waiver program (VWP) countries as of the end of October, 2005. The rules are:

"According to recent U.S. Department of Homeland Security press briefings and documents, the requirements for travelers wanting to enter the United States without a visa under the VWP are as follows:

- June 26 [2005]: Travelers from VWP countries must present passports that are machine-readable for visa-free entry into the United States.
- October 26 [2005]: Travelers from VWP countries with passports issued on or after this date must present passports with a digital photograph; VWP countries are required to produce passports with digital photographs and present an “acceptable plan” to issue passports with integrated circuit chips, or e-passports within one year.
- October 26, 2006: Travelers from VWP countries with a passport issued on or after this date must present a passport with an integrated circuit chip, also known as e-passport, capable of storing biographic information from the passport’s data page, a digitized photograph and other biometric information.

The three requirements stem from legislation passed in 2002 by the U.S. Congress. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 (a U.S. law also known as the Border Security Act) originally required that the government of each VWP country certify it had a program to produce tamper-resistant, machine-readable passports that incorporate a biometric identifier that complies with International Civil Aviation Organization standards by October 26, 2004. In mid-2004, Congress extended the deadline one year. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in recent months, has clarified requirements for continued participation in the VWP. "

Citizens of countries which do not implement the new biometric passports by October 26, 2006 will lose their visa waiver privileges and have to apply for a visa.

See the German Federal Ministry of the Interior (Bundesministerium des Innern, BMI) for information in German about the new German electronic biometric passport, the ePass.

The German ePass [electronic Passport] is being issued pursuant to the European Union (EU)
COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 2252/2004 of 13 December 2004 on standards for security features and biometrics in passports and travel documents issued by Member States

(and see also here) .

Netzpolitik.org refers to a German government hotline for citizens with questions about the new ePass. The information is also found at the BMI:

"Im Oktober werden die Passbehörden mit Plakaten und Flyern zur Information der Bürgerinnen und Bürger ausgestattet. Das BSI bietet bereits seit dem 1. Juni 2005 einen Bürger-Service zu technischen Fragen zum ePass an über die E-Mail-Adresse ePass@bsi.bund.de sowie eine ePass-Hotline. Die Hotline ist von 8 bis 17 Uhr unter der Nummer 01805-274 300 erreichbar (12 ct/min)."

As reported by EU Observer:

"The updated German passport comes with a concealed radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that stores personal information such as name and date of birth, as well as a digital facial image of the holder."

As shown by this biometric passport, modern Germany has many faults and problems, but this land of engineers and scientists is still ahead of most countries in the Western world when it comes to putting certain aspects of modern technology and science into action.

U.S. Electronic Passports

The February 18, 2005 US proposed rule for its own electronic passports had already been issued as a final rule in part, excepting the electronic passport sections, which were just now finalized in the final rule issued by the US State Department on October 25, 2005. See Tech Law Prof Blog and also The U.S. Electronic Passport.

The Final Rule provides:

"The Department intends to begin the electronic passport program in December 2005. The first stage will be a pilot program in which the electronic passports will be issued to U.S. Government employees who use Official or Diplomatic passports for government travel. This pilot program will permit a limited number of passports to be issued and field tested prior to the first issuance to the American traveling public, slated for early 2006. By October 2006, all U.S. passports, with the exception of a small number of emergency passports issued by U.S. embassies or consulates, will be electronic passports."

The RFID chip to be used for passports should not be confused by privacy advocates with RFID chips used to mark products for inventory or sale:

"The ICAO specification for use of contactless chip technology requires a minimum capacity of 32 kilobytes (KB). The U.S. has decided to use a 64KB chip to permit adequate storage room in case additional data, or biometric indicators such as fingerprints or iris scans, are included in the future. Before modifying the definition of "electronic passport" to add a new or additional biometric identifier other than a digitized photograph, we will seek public comment through a new rule making process.

The contactless smart chip that is being used in the electronic passport is a "passive chip" that derives its power from the reader that communicates with it. It cannot broadcast personal information because it does not have its own source of power. Readers that are on the open market, designed to read Type A or Type B contactless chips complying with International Standards Organization (ISO) 14443 and ISO 7816 specifications, will be able to communicate with the chip. This is necessary to permit nations to procure readers from a variety of vendors, facilitate global interoperability and ensure that the electronic passports are readable at all ports of entry.

The proximity chip technology utilized in the electronic passport is designed to be read with chip readers at ports of entry only when the document is placed within inches of such readers. It uses RFID technology. The ISO 14443 RFID specification permits chips to be read when the electronic passport is placed within approximately ten centimeters of the reader. The reader provides the power to the chip and then an electronic communication between the chip and reader occurs via a transmission of radio waves. The technology is not the same as the vicinity chip RFID technology used for inventory tracking of items from distances at retail stores and warehouses. It will not permit "tracking" of individuals. It will only permit governmental authorities to know that an individual has arrived at a port of entry--which governmental authorities already know from presentation of non-electronic passports--with greater assurance that the person who presents the passport is the legitimate holder of the passport.

The personal information that will be contained in the chip is the information on the data page of the passport--the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth, and digitized photograph of the passport holder. The chip will also contain information about the passport itself--the passport number, issue date, expiration date, and type of passport. Finally, the chip will contain coding to prevent any digital data from being altered or removed as well as the chip's unique ID number. This coding will be in the form of a high strength digital signature. The contents of the data page of the traditional passport have been established by international usage and by ICAO. The chip will not contain home addresses, social security numbers, or other information that might facilitate identity theft."

For blog postings on this and related topics see:

Tech Law Prof Blog on the US Final Rule on Electronic Passports
Freedom to Tinker on RFID
neuer-reisepass.de on the new ePass (in German)
PrawfsBlawg on RFID Tags
eLegal Canton on "Bring on the Biometrics"
Surpriv on RFID
NearWalden on RFID Privacy Cases with a link to the EFF
Bruce Schneier on Security with an article that appeared on the IHT
Ryan Singel at Wired News and "American Passports to Get Chipped" suggesting that privacy concerns are overblown.

Crossposted to LawPundit.

Technorati Tags:

RFID, radio frequency id, passports, USA, United States, EU, European Union, Germany, Member States, electronic passports, biometric passports, biometrics, ePass, VWP, law, visa waiver program, visas, homeland security, ICAO, final rule, EUPundit, privacy, State Department, RFID chip, Kaulins.
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European Voice - European News, Views and Facts

One source that we would like to recommend as a basic resource for news, views and facts about the European Union is the publication European Voice ("EV") by The Economist Newspaper Limited.

The European Voice describes itself as "an independent view of the EU". Its main rubrics are Current News (News in Brief), Business & Industry (Business Brief), Special Report, Features, Analysis, Opinion (Viewpoints, Europa, What the papers say, Different Voices, Wilder Europe, Voice from the North, Europe Inside Out), Profile, Letters, Entre Nous [(Just) Between Us], EV Crossword, Diary, and Archive). In addition there are EU Services for EU Jobs, EU Studies, Conference, Seminars & Publication, Accommodation & Property in Brussels. There is also a Forum.
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European Voice - Europeans of the Year Awards - Vote Florian Mueller No Software Patents

I just received the posting found below from the FFII [Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure], and pass it on to those readers who wish to vote in the EV50 poll. Your vote will contribute to the battle against software patents [in our view, software is sufficiently protected by copyright law].
The categories to be voted on are:

Commissioner of the Year
MEP of the Year
Statesman of the Year
Diplomat of the Year
Campaigner of the Year
Business Leader of the Year
Journalist of the Year
Achiever of the Year
Non-EU Citizen of the Year
European of the Year

Please note that we support the vote for Florian Mueller but that we expressley do not support many of the other recommendations for voting made at NoSoftwarePatents.com - but you have to vote in every category to make your vote count, so we recommend you follow your own opinions as to who deserves the other awards. Here is the FFII e-mail message:

Dear supporter of the FFII,

The FFII has kindly enabled me to contact you with this campaign message on my own behalf. You are soon going to receive an email from the Board of the FFII. The FFII will announce this year's General Assembly, which is going to take place in Brussels on 29 November. If you plan to attend, please make a note in your calendar!

In the meantime, please consider voting for me (and other candidates who I recommend) in the public Internet poll for the "EV50 Europeans of the Year" awards, the most prestigious series of awards in EU politics. It would send a strong message to politicians, the press and the public if a vocal opponent of software patents were elected as the new "European of the Year". We can simultaneously ensure that a couple of our political allies, especially Michel Rocard MEP, also receive awards, while the proponents of unlimited software patentability (such as commissioner McCreevy) should come away empty-handed.

The poll is open to the worldwide public (including non-Europeans), and the idea is explained on this page: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/index.html
Specific voting recommendations are available on this page: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html
Those pages are available in 14 languages. You will also find an email form on that site, which makes it quick and easy to inform others of this campaign, and banners for your website.

Richard Stallman (President of the Free Software Foundation), Tim O'Reilly(book publisher and conference organizer), Alan Cox (Linux kernel maintainer), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) and Monty Widenius (MySQL) have endorsed our voting recommendations in a press release: http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=2254&lang=en

Should I win, the FFII will receive the prize money, and will be duly credited in my acceptance speech and a subsequent press release.

In addition to the general information that you find on the website, let me also say a few things about the unique relationship between the FFII and myself.

By participating in an FFII conference in April of last year, I became more aware of the political controversy over software patents. By subsequently participating in various FFII activities, I realized that citizens like us can indeed influence a political debate. With the financial support of three corporate sponsors (1&1, Red Hat, MySQL), I then founded the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign as a complement to the FFII's own website and lobbying. From the conceptual stage on, I cooperated closely with the FFII. Without the FFII, I would not have become involved, let alone been impactful or successful, in the fight against an ill-conceived piece of patent legislation.

About six months ago, I handed the NoSoftwarePatents.com site to the FFII, and if you look at the voting form for the EV50 awards, then you will notice that the NoSoftwarePatents.com name is right next to my name. I'm running on the NoSoftwarePatents ticket, and in the name of a website that will, hopefully, be a cornerstone of future FFII campaigns in the software patent context.

The FFII and I jointly received this year's CNET Networks UK Technology Award in the Outstanding Contribution to Software Development category. It would only have been fair if we had always been jointly nominated for such awards and honors, but even where that is not formally the case, it's still the way I view it in practice.

For your convenience, here is another link to the voting recommendations: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/ev50/vote.html

Thank you for considering to lend me your support, and once again, thanks to the FFII for everything! Best regards, Florian Mueller

Crossposted to LawPundit.
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