Re: [wg-b] Preliminary Questions

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <Harald@alvestrand.no>]

At 02:32 06.09.99 -0700, d3nnis wrote:
>Re:
>
>
> > >Famous marks are protected by the Paris convention and the TRIPS agrement;
> > >international law recognizes them, so it's a question of setting up
> > >mechanisms to protect the rights they already have.
>
>Domain names are not trademarks.  They have no trademark status, and they 
>are not protected by the existing Famous Marks treaties.

Domain names have been considered to constitute infringement upon both 
Famous Marks and Trademarks. See court cases referred to earlier on the list.


>The only way this group can "extend protection" to them is by proposing 
>new law to the proper sources of international law -- which offhand seems 
>highly improper to me.
>
>We would be on far more solid ground by asking all signatories to PARIS 
>and TRIPS to
>submit their famous marks lists to us, and asking registries to do a name 
>check and issue a
>trademark "encroachment" warning.

:-)
One of the more amusing documents presented at the WIPO Experts' meeting 
was the book "Famous marks in Japan". There are around 10.000 of them, I 
think, counting both logomarks and textmarks. (I still have it, but not here)

Most of them were totally unknown in Norway.
There is no current, acknowledged list of famous marks to check against.
(Yes, I know, I have a twisted sense of humor :-)

                              Harald

--
Harald Tveit Alvestrand, Maxware, Norway
Harald.Alvestrand@maxware.no