Re: [ga] Some other ideas about the questions... [ga-udrp] UDRP Questionnaire

["William S. Lovell" <wsl@cerebalaw.com>]

For what it's worth, under U. S. trademark law if a mark has been in active
use for 5 years, the owner may file an affidavit to that effect and have
the mark declared "incontestable," meaning that it cannot be attacked
except upon grounds of fraud in acquiring it, or on a showing that the
mark has become generic.  The latter would not apply as to domain
names, but the former would.  The idea of 3 years, in my opinion,
would better fit the Internet context than would the trademark 5 years.

Bill Lovell


"Cade,Marilyn S - LGA" wrote:

> Folks, while we can get very excited about options and ideas, we do need to
> reflect back to what the law is...
>
> I know that courts aren't perfect either.  But then,neither is random
> justice, doled out by fiat... so somewhere there is a balance and we do the
> best we can.  I don't know if Milton's proposal of 3 years works in actual
> experience, but I suspect that if someone has been using a domain name for
> three years, most courts would take that into consideration.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sotiris Sotiropoulos [mailto:sotiris@hermesnetwork.com]
> Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2001 6:56 PM
> To: wsl@cerebalaw.com
> Cc: ga-udrp; Cade,Marilyn S - LGA; Jefsey Morfin; ga@dnso.org
> Subject: Re: [ga] Some other ideas about the questions... [ga-udrp] UDRP
> Questionnaire
>
> "William S. Lovell" wrote:
>
> > <snip>I'll hate myself for this, but the way that the courts enforce
> uniformity
> > over,
> > say,
> > the regional circuit courts, is that there is an appeal to the U. S.
> Supreme
> > Court
> > which then defines standards for the lower appellate courts to follow.
> Even
> > that
> > does not work too well -- some circuits (e.g., the 9th) make it a practice
> of
> > weaseling their way around U. S. Supreme Court decisions -- they read the
> ones
> > they want to read and ignore the rest.<snip>
>
> Is that the infamous "Rocket Docket"?  Yes, a rather slick operation that...
> Did
> someone say something about Law???
>
> > <snip>(And here, of course, is one of the major
> > problems: I would
> > wager that most of those on these panels are techie Internet gurus who
> don't
> > know beans about
> > any trademark law anywhere.)<snip>
>
> I'll take you up on that wager Bill.  How much would you like to lose?

Heh, heh!! Give me a list! :-)

Bill

>
> > > >007.    Should the ability to challenge a name under the UDRP expire
>
> > > after a
> > > > >single registrant has held the name for a specified period of time?
> >
> > Good question
>
> An excellent question Marilyn!  Milton Mueller has already proposed a 3 year
> registration stipulation.  I fully support Milton's initiative.
>
> Regards,
>
> Sotiris Sotiropoulos

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