October 22, 2002

Dear Paul,

Thank you for your letter of October 11, 2002, regarding the .TM Top Level Domain. As you know, your longstanding support of the activities of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in connection with the protection of intellectual property in the Domain Name System has always been and remains very much appreciated.

With respect to the manner in which TM is planned to be operated, we note that it is proposed to continue the existing practice to have foreign applicants register at the second level (administered internationally) and local applicants at the third level under predefined second level domains (administered from Turkmenistan), although a number of existing registrations at the second level by local registrants will need to be grand-fathered into the new system.

As requested. we have reviewed the Terms and Conditions for .TM Domain Names which we have received from you on October 1, 2002. Taking into account the observations we have made on October 15, 2002, we hereby confirm that we find these Terms and Conditions to be in compliance with the WIPO ccTLD Best Practices for the Prevention and Resolution of Intellectual Property Disputes. In addition, specifically regarding WHOIS, we draw your attention to the recommendation of these Best Practices that administrators of ccTLDs make available to the public, on a real-time basis, all registrant contact details through WHOIS services unless they are legally prevented from doing so by local mandatory privacy regulations.

Concerning dispute resolution, we are pleased to join this letter, the draft of a policy and rules (including supplemental rules) for your consideration. You will note that this policy and these rules have been modeled on the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy and are intended to apply only to registrations at the second level in .TM.

The WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center would be delighted to work with .TM Domain Registry Limited and its technology providers and accepts your invitation to offer dispute resolution services in connection with .TM domain name registrations.

Yours sincerely



Francis Gurry
Assistant Director General
Legal Counsel