Reply to Anthony Harrison, Director, e2p Limited (2 November 2000)

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FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

To:	Anthony Harrison Director e2p Limited

Dear Mr. Harrison:

I am responding to your 11 October 2000 e-mail concerning "e2p Technology."

In that e-mail you assert that your company has applied for a patent on "eTLD (Extended Top level Domains)," under which "every word or letter [is available] available as a new TLD, so long as it was not a pre-existing TLD at the 1st of January 2000." Although you have not provided details on your company's patent application, your company's attempt obtain a patent is surprising, since the description on your company's web site states: "An eTLD is just like a gTLD (General Top Level Domain) or a ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain)." Since gTLDs and ccTLDs have been available for over a decade, and well-known and broadly published, it would seem unlikely that there is any novelty in the eTLD concept that would warrant a patent.

Your e-mail also draws attention to the ".phone and .art eTLDs," for which your company has also applied for patents. You continue: "Your applicants should . . . be informed of the existence of technology with patent pending that will throw them in direct conflict with the ambitions of the owners of those technologies. By way of example, your applicants for .tel and .phone are unlikely to be able to use them for telephone related purposes." Again, you have provided no details on what feature of these TLDs your company has sought to patent. Use of the domain-name system for telephone and art purposes, however, has been broadly discussed and the subject of written publications for quite some time, and it seems unlikely that a patent broadly covering these uses would be valid.

In any event, if your company wishes applicants for particular TLDs to be apprised of its patent claims, it is free to contact them directly. (Their contact information is available at <http://www.icann.org/tlds/tld-applications-lodged-02oct00.htm>.) To make your contacts meaningful, it would be helpful if you would provide the applicants copies of all materials exchanged with patent offices regarding the applications.

Yours sincerely,

Louis Touton
Vice-President and General Counsel