Re: The Fame Claim List -was [wg-b] notification as compromise?

[Randy Bush <randy@psg.com>]

> I do not deny that entities in any field of endeavour utilize lawyers for
> the purpose of intimidation and I don't doubt that you have seen letters
> which may be characterized as heavy-handed.

and i can well imagine that i have only seen the ugly ones because the
non-ugly ones were not worth showing around town.

> It is my understanding that the UDRP tweaking committee has been charged
> with defining what constitutes abuse of the procedure and creating
> disincentives for abuse of the procedure.

this might go a good way toward ameliorating the more egregious reverse
hijacking attempts, especially if the disincentive was visible both to the
small domain holder and the party considering a frivolous filing.

> Under US law, there are statutes (i.e. the Declaratory Judgment Act,
> Codes of Professional Conduct for lawyers, as well as state tort law)
> which would affect the contents of lawyers letters.

considering the letters i have seen, these statutes may not have been very
effective deterrents.

> However, I stand by my original point that from a point of view of
> policing a mark, TM owners are not interested in sending out demand
> letters in situations which don't warrant it because it costs money.

history would suggest that *many* letters have been sent because the
recipient could be scared into rolling over as opposed to defending even
though a lawyer might know the defense would likely succeed.  your
pokey.org example comes to mind, as does avery.

> As for the potential of abuse in the non-commercial TLDs, please direct
> your comments to Mikki Barry.

actually, kathryn kleiman has been spending unwarranted resources trying to
give me a bit of clue.  she probably deserves a sympathy card.

randy