TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY
MR. FRANCIS GURRY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR GENERAL
TO LAUNCH THE FINAL REPORT OF THE WIPO INTERNET DOMAIN NAME PROCESS

GENEVA, MAY 3, 1999

Mr. Francis Gurry: Thank you, Samar, and good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all for coming along and for the interest that you display in WIPO and in our work. I intend to spend five minutes only in introducing the Report. The WIPO Final Report has now been published. We regard it as a chance to stop a practice that is regarded by all as an abuse and unjustifiable, and that is onsidered by all to involve a wasteful diversion of economic resources, as well as undermining consumer confidence in the Internet as a safe place to do business and to interact socially.

The practice I speak of, of course, is the dishonest appropriation of the identity of others in which those others have well-established rights. That is, the practice known as 'cybersquatting'. Let me go through briefly how it is that we propose in the Report that this practice be stopped. There are three essential elements, and I'll briefly relate them and then say something about the difficulties with each.

The first is the availability of contact details, of reliable and accurate contact details for every domain name holder in the generic top level domains (gTLDs). The second is the establishment of a quick-knockdown anti-cybersquatting procedure, and the third is a mechanism for establishing exclusions for globally famous trademarks. So I will go through each of those three and if anyone wants to to ask any questions , please do so at any stage, but there will also be an opportunity at the end.

First - contact details: This is one of the controversial areas and it is controversial because the Internet gTLDs are, at the moment, a multi-functional and undifferentiated space. Anyone can register a ".com". You don't have to be a commercial enterprise to register in .com. You can register in .com if you want to just have a web site and put it up there for entirely domestic and family purposes. Because of that multi-functional and undifferentiated nature of .com and the other gTLDs, there is a lobby out there that considers that contact details of domain name holders should not be publicly available. This concern is based first of all on privacy considerations, and secondly, more generally on civil liberties considerations, including freedom of political expression. Commentators have said "I don't want to be harassed for the views that I might publish on the net .... I don't want to give the opportunity for people to harass me."

Our view is that this argument works both ways. For as long as the .com and the other gTLDs are undifferentiated, so that people can do commercial transactions, can perform commercial services under in any of these domains and, for as long as that's the case, then we think that the interests of IP coincide with a range of other public policy interests in favor of the publication of contact details. The other issues are, of course, prevention of fraudulent business practices and consumer protection in general - you want to know what the true identity of the person is that you've just bought something from or entered into a commercial transaction with. You want to know the true identity of the person that you are dealing with, for the protection of minors and so forth. So for as long as the gTLDs are undifferentiated, we feel that the interests of IP coincide with a lot of sound public policies in requiring that contact details of domain name holders be available and that they be accurate and reliable.

Now, as to the privacy lobby, we feel at the moment that it's best dealt with by requiring proper notice and consent. That is, that domain name holders have proper notice that their details would bewill be made publicly available and that they consent to that - and this issue is dealt with in paragraphs 87 to 90 of the Report. We also consider that there are existing mechanisms for maintaining anonymity on the web. You can go to an ISP like America Online or many other such ISPs, and you can obtain a sub-domain from them in which you are not required to divulge your contact details, but the ISP accepts responsibility for what's going on its domain that it's leasing to others.

And finally, we suggest that this issue of the possible creation of a non-commercial domain that is use-restricted, requires further exploration to see whether this is one way of accommodating some of these privacy concerns and civil liberties concerns. We don't necessarily recommend that such a domain be established, but we think it requires further study.

Perhaps the only other matter to mention there here is that we recommend that if it is shown that contact details are unreliable and inaccurate and you can't establish contact with a domain name holder, then the domain name should be taken down, and the registration should be cancelled.

The second way then that we think this cybersquatting practice can be stopped is a quick knockdown anti-cybersquatting procedure, as I earlier mentioned. Here the changes that we made to the Interim Report that was published in December are essentially two-fold. First, we think that this procedure should be mandatory, but only in respect of bad faith, abusive registrations. ou might recall that in December we suggested that there be an alternative administrative procedure for all disputes of an intellectual property nature relating to domain name registrations. We scale that back in our Final Report to say this procedure should be is mandatory and is available only in respect of abusive registrations.

As to what constitutes "abusive registrations", we have set out a definition in paragraph 171. If you look at it, I think you'll find that it's an eminently reasonable definition. You essentially have to show three cumulative conditions. First, that the domain name is identical or misleadingly similar to a trademark in which someone else has rights. Secondly, that the holder of the domain name has no rights or legitimate interests in that domain name and thirdly, that the domain name has been registered and is used in bad faith. So we feel that this an adequate safeguard for those who fear that they might be harassed by such a procedure. It is clearly only directed at abusive registrations.

The second way in which we scale back our draft recommendations from the Interim Report, is to define "abusive" only by reference to violation of trademark rights. That leaves, we are conscious, a number of interests outstanding. For example, geographical indications. We had one submission in the course of the process Process from the producers of Chateâu Neuf du Pape, saying that they had been cybersquatted. However, we felt that at this stage it is best to start with the certain, that is, reasonably harmonized worldwide, trademark rights, and always leave the door open if the procedure gains credibility and is considered to be successful, to extend it to other forms of abusive registration. Geographical indications is the first example of such abusive registration, personality rights are another.

You may be aware that, for example, at least in December there were some 39 variations of George W Bush registered as domain names and only two of them were affiliated with his campaign. Personality rights are not covered. The name of the UN itself has been the subject of cybersquatting. ITU and WIPO have both been cybersquatted. If you go to ITU.com or WIPO.com, you will find that both of them are held by the same person, and both of them this are for sale for, I think it was $3000. (It's actually getting less as time goes on, which worries us somewhat.). And there are other obvious areas where people's rights can be abused by domain name registrations. We feel at this stage it's best, since it is a new procedure, to start with the sure certain cases and go on from there.

So a third significant area of the Report is the global famous trademark exclusion. As you know, there are some people who consider this to be preferential treatment to one class of Internet user. They say hy just famous marks, why not all these other rights? Why can't you get an exclusion for a well-known event that's coming along? We feel that again, it's best to start with the certain. Globally famous trademarks have been the consistent subjects of cybersquatting. This is clear. They are the first target. There is also a fear that in creating this exclusion mechanism you erode the domain name space, you take out of circulation as it were, a number of names, namely all the names of the famous trademarks.

We feel the best way of giving assurances in this respect is to say that the exclusion mechanism is only available for those trademarks which are famous on a widespread geographical basis and across various classes of goods. So if you were a famous mark in the oil pumping industry only and you were famous to all those familiar with that industry, you would not get an exclusion. You have to be a famous mark across classes of goods such that any use of the mark would be liable to lead to confusion as to the source of the owner.

QUESTION: When you said "geographical" are you saying across the countries or continents?

GURRY: Across countries and continents. Various people suggest that we should have a quantitative formula; 50 registrations or across three continents. In the end, we decided to keep simply the formulation of 'widespread geographical basis' and leave it to the panels to determine exactly what that means. Because you could have 50 registrations and not be famous. It is notoriety and reputation in the end that determines whether or not you are a famous mark and there are criteria established in the Report to make the assessment of whether it is famous.

The final term of reference, which is more general, is that one of the things we were asked to do was to assess whether new gTLDs could be introduced and what their impact would be on intellectual property. As we make clear in the Interim Report, we consider this to be a much more complicated question that involves broader issues than just intellectual property. It involves the scalability of the domain names space, what sort of system of differentiation ICANN may want to use, whether they want to use 50 classifications or 150 classifications.

We were looking at it only from a limited perspective of intellectual property, and in the IP field, of course, many of the major corporations say: "No, we don't want any more gTLD domains because this will just lead to a repetition of the experience of the last five years, in which we're cybersquatted and we have to divert all of these resources into fighting cybersquatting". So our recommendation in this respect is that, on condition that ICANN introduce these anti -cybersquatting procedures - first of all the availability of contact details, the anti-cybersquatting procedure and an exclusion mechanism for globally famous marks - then from the IP perspective you can contemplate introducing new gTLDs without leading to a repetition of the experience of the last five years.

So, in summary, we think that the Report is in many ways a first step towards introducing some order in respect of a practice that we think nobody defended in the course of the whole Process - that is, cybersquatting. Everyone agreed that cybersquatting was an abusive practice and everyone agreed that it was abusive because it was undermining consumer confidence, it was leading to this massive diversion of economic resources, whereby corporations were spending a large amount of monies on watch services, on litigation. WIPO's recommendations, if introduced, will make the Internet a much more reliable place to do business.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

QUESTION: Could you give me an example for of a trademark that's globally known that could obtain such an exclusion, because you said it should be patented in more than one class of goods. So something like Coca -Cola which is famous but only produces some things couldn't get one?

ANSWER: No. You might say that Coca -Cola's notoriety extends well beyond soft drinks. It's known to a broader class of consumer than simply those who drink soft drinks. A lot of people who don't drink Coca -Cola know about Coca -Cola. So where is its notoriety? It's notoriety is known to consumers of all classes or many classes of goods. I wouldn't like to give an example, because that prejudges the exclusion mechanism. You know there are tests set out in the Report of the criteria to se to assess it, but many people say it's famous if you immediately recognize it. If it's immediately recognizable as famous. As we said in the Report, a mark can become famous in a very short period of time. For example, if we say a well known Internet site that's associated with the sale of books. If you immediately think of a name, well, you're on the track. Or a so-called lifestyle drug that became available in the last two years. If this immediately conjures up a name, well, you know what we're talking about, and you may not have to use it in order to know about it.

QUESTION: If I may mention another example. Apples. I mean there is Apple computers and there are people who eat apples. How would you solve conflicts like that?.

ANSWER: Well you see we have the problem at the moment, as I mentioned, of an undifferentiated space. In the future we may see, and this is a matter for ICANN, much more differentiation in the domains that are available. There might be a ".fruit", for example, and this allows you to scale the scope of the any exclusion much more precisely.

QUESTION: Two questions. The first is, these representations now go to ICANN - what is the timing of their implementation? The second question is just again on these globally famous trademarks. If you take a company like McDonalds, I think there was a case in South Africa, where there was a local company that was ruled by the court to have the right to use the McDonalds name because of legitimate interests. How would your procedure solve disputes of that kind?

ANSWER: The answer to the first question is that ICANN has a board Board meeting in Berlin from May 25-27, and our Report is an action item on the agenda for the Board meeting. ICANN is moving rapidly towards the introduction of competition at the registrar level in the gTLDs. It has already accredited five testbed registrars to accept registration in the gTLDs in conjunction with NSI acting as the registry, and it is planned to introduce a considerable number of others in two months' time. So we think it's important that the recommendations be considered and, if possible, adopted as soon as possible.

Now, as to the second question, our exclusion mechanism operates in a way whereby you can get an exclusion for all gTLDs or for some only, and then, furthermore, once you have the exclusion, anyone may bring a petition to ask for a complete or partial cancellation of the exclusion. So you could come forward and say that you want the right to use the name, and you have the legitimate right to use the name in one particular domain and you would like the exclusion cancelled for that domain.

QUESTION: George Bush is quite a popular figure in the Gulf Region, so can I know why was he replicated 39 times and were there any disputes around this George W. Bush domain?

ANSWER: I don't know whether there have been any disputes about it. What I do know is that in December last year there were 39 registrations because of his prospective candidacy for the elections. Yes, George W. Bush Jr. So people were registering in order to cybersquat the domain. But, of course, some of those would claim to exercise legitimate rights of free speech. They would want to set up as an opposition site as well.

QUESTION: Let me make sure I get this clear, the difference between an exclusion you are recommending and the knockdown method. Does the knockdown mean that somebody would already have the name and then they would be forced to withdraw it whereas an exclusion means from the start............(inaudible)?

ANSWER: You've got it, essentially.

QUESTION: How would that work in practice? I mean how would somebody be physically knocked out of the Internet?

ANSWER: You just cancel the registration. Our recommendations also state that all registrars operating should be required to implement the decisions coming out of the knockdown procedure. The connection between the two is additionally that the exclusion operates only on the exact name, so it would be exactly Coca -Cola, for example, that is excluded from use, and although there may be many variations. In fact, typically there are many variations, so with an exclusion you could go to the knockdown procedure and bring a procedure against the others and if you could show, we say, that it is misleadingly similar and that it's damaging your mark, then it's up to the other user to prove legitimate use, and to prove why they should be using the name.

QUESTION: There would be a panel that would decide if something was misleadingly similar?

Answer: That's right. In both cases, for the anti-cybersquatting procedure there would be a panel of three neutral judges as it were, and to decide upon exclusions, a panel of three.

QUESTION: Under ICANN, the panel would be .......(inaudible)

ANSWER: No, we recommend that in relation to the first that this is a matter for ICANN. There are arbitration centers around the world, WIPO has one, and we recommend that some ought to be accredited to administer this procedure. However, in relation to the exclusions, we think that it should be WIPO to administer the panels. The reason why we make the distinction is that an exclusion affects third parties and it therefore has a quasi-public law character and we think that operation needs therefore to be centralized.

QUESTION: A couple of questions. The quick one, is ICANN based in the US?

ANSWER: ICANN is based in the US, yes.

QUESTION: OK. How much does it cost to register a domain name and how much do cybersquatters make by squatting?

ANSWER: If you register with NSI, it used to cost $70 per registration. Now that competition has been introduced on the registrar level, it is up to the registrars to decide how much they will charge and we are likely to see a reduction and perhaps considerable reductions, in the cost of obtaining a domain name registration.

Now, how much do cybersquatters make? Well, it's a difficult thing to assess. They were offering WIPO.com for $5000, for example, or ITU.com for $5000, but they can ask considerable sums and really it's been for them a question of playing on the difference between the amount that it would cost a corporation or an organization to bring litigation against the cybersquatter, which is considerable, and the ease and facility of just paying the cybersquatter some money and getting rid of the problem.

QUESTION: Just a quick follow-up. In terms of registering a domain name, there are specific rules for what you have to do in order to get your name registered, as I gather it's really quite simple.

ANSWER: Very simple. Generally, if you do it on-line, you just fill out a form on-line. One of the things that we recommend is that a minimum set of best practices for registration authorities be introduced, that they be required, essentially in order to produce accurate and reliable contact details and information.

QUESTION: Just let me ask you one more question. In order to try to understand how much money you can really make from this, what was the most as far as you know that has been asked? I mean, $4000 sounds like peanuts and the price seems to be going down for WIPO.

ANSWER: Well, I think that it was reported in the press that I think Alta Vista paid a sum of $3m to get back the name. But that's a rather unusual case, because Alta Vista became well well-known and with established rights in a very short period of time and someone else may have been there using the domain name legitimately, for all we know. Another example is a Swiss Llife Aassurance company some two years ago paid SFr. 75,000 to buy back its name. I think it was Aetna, but I'm not sure of the details. It was reported in the press here.

QUESTION: Two questions. One is as regards the figure in terms of trademark abuses on the net. Could you give some indication of where they take most and what would be the amount of violations that have taken place? Second, as regards the new gTLDs which will come up now. Are they geographically distributed or the country -specific because there are a lot of complaints from several developing countries that these are being monopolized. Is there any firm that has gone in to resolve this issue or address this issue? Thirdly, the geographical origins. What exactly have you dealt in this Report? You said something on geographical indications that this is also an issue that is being tackled?

ANSWER: Well, let me deal with the questions in reverse order if I can. We said that we have confined the anti-cybersquatting procedure to violations of trademarks only. In our Interim Report we said it should be a comprehensive procedure in any IP dispute. In narrowing the scope of the procedure, some things are left out that might be regarded as abusive, and one of those, for example, is the abusive use of geographical indications, as they are known in intellectual property systems. For example, Chateâu Neuf du Pape producers complaining to us that they had been cybersquatted.

The second one. The gTLDs are really regarded as, if you like, international spaces, and what ICANN is doing is proceeding to accredit registrars on a widespread geographical basis. There has been only one registrar operating up until now on the gTLDs and that has been Networks Solutions, NSI. ICANN has accredited five testbed registrars, one of which is associated with France Telecom for example, another of which is associated with the administrator of .au in Australia, so they have already started a move to geographically expand diversify and their objective is to have registration facility services available on a widespread geographical basis throughout the world and this will come.

And your first question, then, as to examples of where trademark abuses have been taking place. We have, in an Annex, done a study of the ccTLDs and their experience with these problems. For various reasons, they have less such problems, usually because their entry conditions for registration are more tightly controlled. Evidence of that is set out in Annex IX and you could also look at Chapter 5 of the Report, paragraphs 312-339, which gives you a lot of concrete examples of enterprises that have been cybersquatted and how they describe their problem. For example, a common practice is to register a very close variation on a well-known mark and to link that to a pornography site. The idea is that the user makes a slip in typing the domain name, or else a search engine which operates on an automated basis of picking up everything that's similar to that, will throw up on the list. Porsche, for example, brought litigation against about 126 close variations of Porsche and the vast majority of these were porn sites.

QUESTION: Why I'm asking this question is, I fear violations are invariably attributed to the developing world, so in terms of if you have to identify where exactly they stem from or where they take place most, would you be able to put your hand on?

ANSWER: Well, you know, one way of answering a question is that there has been a totally free market, so where you might find the free market to be strongest, there you'll find the abuses to be greatest.

QUESTION: A very short question. How many gTLDs do we have now and how many do you expect to see in the five years or so if the new recommendations get adopted.?

ANSWER: At the moment there is .com, .net and .org, the three that we call "open", that is, anyone can register in them without any conditions at all. Also in this category of gTLDs there is .mil, but that's reserved to the US military. There's .edu, but that's reserved to certain tertiary institutions offering four-year degree courses in the US. There's .int, which is largely administered by ITU, but that's reserved to international organizations, and .gov, and that's reserved to US governmental agencies. So, effectively three open gTLDs. As to how many in the future, we're not really in a position to say that, because that's entirely for ICANN to decide. WIPO's role in this on the subject was that we were asked how this would impact on IP interests, and as I mentioned, provided that these practices are introduced, we think it's OK

QUESTION: Regarding administrative procedures to resolve a dispute. I'm wondering how much will that cost? Do you have an idea? Does the loser have a right to appeal?

ANSWER: The loser will not have a right to appeal, but the loser can always go to court, so the procedure will be a one-off procedure, but the loser can always go to court. The results will be implemented within seven days of having been handed down. That seven-day delay is designed to allow the user a possibility to go to court to get a restraining order on its implementation. Now, as to how much the procedure will cost, this will be up to the arbitration institutions or the disputes resolutions service providers who are accredited to administer the procedure to determine. It will be governed by the a market place. But as far as WIPO is concerned, the way we intend to do it is to hold batch hearings and therefore reduce the costs - that is, to group cases and to have them dealt with by a panel on, for example, every Friday, one day, depending on the demand, and then to hold these panel hearings locally. So there can be a panel hearing that will be held in Washington, another in Brussels, another in Singapore, etc., depending on the demand and to deal with them expeditiously in this way. That, we think has cost effectiveness advantages, because you have only one set of air fares involved for the panel, which is spread across a range of cases, and similarly the ancillary costs of the meeting room and so on are also shared.

QUESTION: Several other questions on the administrative procedure. First of all, dispute resolution, I understand, is going to be handled by accredited institutions and the accredited institutions handled by ICANN or WIPO?

QUESTION: I think it's likely that it will be handled by ICANN but we don't know that, that is a matter that's got to be resolved. ICANN is the logical body, but some people say that ICANN's functions are the technical management of the domain name system and it dispute resolution extends a little beyond that, so this is a question to be discussed at the ICANN Board meeting.

QUESTION: It's mentioned that the procedure will be limited to cases of bad faith. Do you have to have any definition for that? When does a dispute become bad faith?

ANSWER: We don't have a comprehensive definition, but we cite in paragraph 171 four non-exhaustive examples, and one example is offering to sell the domain name to the owner. Another example is the porn site example - attempting to attract for financial gain, divert Internet users to your site by creating confusion with the real name. A third example is blocking the owner of the mark from registering its mark, provided that there is a pattern of this, and it's not a one-off occurrence. And the fourth is the competition example, of registering a domain name in order to disrupt the business of a competitor. That's the case where someone's going to market a new product and a competitor hears about this and gets in and blocks it. So that's a pure unfair competition situation.

So we feel it is better to leave this criteria on the general level of bad faith, given that there are two other criteria that you already have to satisfy. The owner has to show that it has legitimate rights in the name and that that domain name is misleadingly similar or identical to the one in which it has legitimate rights.

Secondly, that the domain name holder has no rights or legitimate interests, so there was a lot of things said about 'what if I register a domain name that's in the nickname of my child?' That's an example where you might have legitimate rights. So it's just the bad faith situation that we're on addressing here.

QUESTION: A general question from a layman. Are all the main names registered somewhere, as it stands? You can't knock anyone out....?

ANSWER: Yes, and there is a central repository if you like, run by the registry.

QUESTION: Just a couple more questions. In regards to the privacy questions. Under what conditions can a person registering the domain name have his details made available to a person contesting it? And originally when this Process started, there were a lot of concerns from the Internet community about the corporations bullying small people, I guess you'd say. How does this latest report Report address that?

ANSWER: So, on the first, we think it's best dealt with at the moment by proper notice and consent, so that any time you fill out a registration form for a domain name, you will be notified that your contact details will be made publicly available and either you consent to that and proceed with the registration or you say "I don't like that", in which case you've got to look for another option. There are other options at the moment, as I mentioned. You can go to America Online, or a number of other Internet service providers, and you operate a sub-domain under theirs and you remain anonymous, and the ISP accepts the responsibility for what is happening within its domain.

Ultimately we hadWIPO suggested that consideration be given to the creation amongst new gTLDs of a non-commercial use-restricted domain where it might be possible not to make publicly available a registrant's contact details. That would involve some change in the present system, because in the present system nobody polices whether you are eligible to register in .com. You can register in .com even if you are doing something entirely non-commercial. The condition of such a new domain would be that it's use requirements are enforced, so that if you were performing a commercial service on this domain, then you could be taken down, you could be de-registered. WIPO doesn't actually recommend that this domain be established, but we think it needs more exploration and more consultation as to whether this is a feasible option. For example, one of the questions that needs to be further explored is "does the commercial / non-commercial distinction work"? A lot of people in the copyright community told us that they believe it doesn't work, because it doesn't catch people who are distributing free of charge proprietary software or music. This is not a commercial activity, but it is nevertheless an infringement of intellectual property rights. So we think it needs further study.

The second question is the so-called "reverse domain name hijacking" situation and we deal with it in Chapter 5. There are a number of paragraphs (323-327) devoted to examples of what people say has constituted harassment by trademark owners of legitimate activity in registering trademarks. We think that our scaling back of the mandatory procedure is going to provide the answer to that. You can only be de-registered because of your deliberate, bad faith abusive registration of a domain name in which you can't show any rights. We think this is the safeguard against that. Of course it won't stop any such practices, if they do exist, by way of litigation.

QUESTION: Is there a general willingness among the ISPs to assume responsibility for this?

ANSWER: Yes, I think that they control it. Usually as part of the condition of your registration agreement is that you won't do X, Y and Z and you will accept responsibility, and nobody has any difficulty with that.

QUESTION: Are you aware of any ISP being subject to court action anywhere because of responsibility for sub-domains.

ANSWER: No, we're not aware of it and normally an IP owner's real interest is stopping the infringement from happening. That's their first interest and the ISPs are very co-operative in this regard, because they know that their responsibility is only going to increase if they don't co-operate and stop it.

So generally that works reasonably well it seems.

QUESTION: You can't make this retrospective can you? I mean, anybody who has registered something already, they're not going to have to provide their contact details now if they've got their web site, or would you want people to re-register?

ANSWER: Yes, we feel that the contact details will have to be made publicly available. A lot of them are on the "Whois" service run by NSI, but one of the major complaints about that is that they have been found to be unreliable and inaccurate. Registrants may fill out anything and that's why we say the answer to that is, that if you can show it's unreliable and inaccurate, then you can't establish contact and the registrar verifies that contact is not able to be established and de-registers the name.

QUESTION: When you talk of a resolution mechanism, should it be in the multilateral domain?

ANSWER: One of the difficulties of course is that the Internet is a global medium which is undifferentiated geographically, and court systems and legal systems operate on a geographical basis, and this is the reason WIPO recommends an international anti-cybersquatting procedure.

QUESTION: Inaudible...

ANSWER: Well, it's a wide question and this is one example, one process. There are also the copyright treaties that were concluded at the end of 1996, and which adjust the copyright system to the digital world really, and the digital economy - for example, in terms of definition of publication and in having a requirement that you cannot circumvent technologically-based measures of protection. WIPO is working on the identification of a whole series of issues where we feel that there might be some adjustment required to the historical system of intellectual property protection for the digital environment, and we will be holding an International Conference on Electronic Commerce and Intellectual Property from September 14-16, 1999, in Geneva, to which you are all most welcome.